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By Michelle Chawla
The recent Supreme Court order asking Reliance Energy to pay up Rs 300 crore or face closure of its polluting power plant in Dahanu has been welcomed by environmentalists who have been fighting for years to preserve the region's eco-fragile status. But without public engagement and the support of the people, the most radical of judgments will find no agency for implementation
For those seeking environmental justice, the good news of late has mainly been coming from the courts. This trend, prevalent the world over, is more often than not devoid of public engagement, leading to a situation where some of the most radical judgments find no agency for their implementation.
The prolonged battle against a thermal power plant on the western Indian coast near Dahanu, which is known as the fruit bowl of India , is a classic example of this phenomenon. Years of legal victories have changed virtually nothing on the ground.
Even though the recent order asking energy major Reliance to pay Rs 300 crore or face closure of its polluting thermal power plant in Dahanu has all the makings of an ‘environmental victory’, it would come as no surprise if the company disregarded the order completely and neither paid out the Rs 300 crore nor installed the flue gas de-sulphurisation plant (FGD), a pollution control device to reduce emissions.
Although environmentalists have managed to strike the company where it hurts most -- financially -- the Supreme Court order is just one more legal victory in Dahanu’s decade-and-a-half-long environmental struggle.
Interestingly, the company (formerly the Bombay Suburban Electric Supply [BSES] Ltd) was asked to install the FGD plant 15 years ago, in 1989. In fact, it was granted clearance to set up a 500 MW thermal power plant in Dahanu only on condition that it would install the FGD plant to reduce pollution till such time as a cleaner fuel like natural gas became available.
In May 1999, 10 years on, the Supreme Court-appointed expert body, the Dahanu Taluka Environment Protection Authority (DTEPA) had to remind the company to install the FGD plant. The company challenged the order in the Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court of India in 2000 and, both times, the environment authority’s directive was upheld. Still no FGD unit was installed.
In 2004, after Reliance Energy took over from BSES Ltd, it re-submitted a schedule for installation of the plant. But although a letter of intent was issued to Ducon Technologies in February 2005, the company was given clear instructions not to begin work on either the engineering or installation of the FGD plant until Reliance issued a separate notice to proceed. Condemning Reliance Energy for its apparent delay tactics, the DTEPA accused the company of being “not very serious about the installation of its FGD plant”. It ordered Reliance Energy to deposit a bank guarantee of Rs 300 crore to ensure its commitment towards setting up the unit. The authority has given Reliance Energy one month to pay up.
The order comes at a time when Reliance Energy has only a month to go for the renewal of its licence to operate the 500 MW plant (the licence expires on April 30, 2005 ). It is therefore expected to put pressure on the company, which has been disregarding the rule of law for over 15 years. Yet, ineffectiveness in the mechanisms of the law to exert pressure on the company to improve its environmental performance is all too obvious. In reality the company feels no pressure other than having to send a lawyer to attend hearings and provide statements and explanations.
Ironically, even as the battle to install the FGD plant continues unabated, a cleaner fuel like natural gas is now available, by the company’s own admission. In fact, a peculiar situation has been created by the company’s inordinate delay and blatant violation of all orders, making the struggle to install the FGD plant almost irrelevant at this point.
While the FGD unit will only reduce sulphur emissions, natural gas is the cleanest of all the available fossil fuels. The combustion of natural gas, unlike coal, releases very small amounts of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, virtually no ash or particulate matter, and lower levels of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and other reactive hydrocarbons. To protect Dahanu’s agricultural and horticultural economy it is imperative that the principal demand, and one of the clearance conditions of switching to natural gas, be upheld. It is critical for Reliance Energy to clarify its position on switching to gas-fired turbines.
Limitations in the legal mechanisms to protect the environment are also evident from the social configurations created.
Reliance Energy is keen to expand its 500 MW capacity to 2,000 MW. But Dahanu is enmeshed in a complex web of notifications and legalities protecting its environment and preventing unsystematic industrialisation. This has been a major bone of contention, polarising Dahanu into Environmentalists versus Rest of the People for over a decade.
This polarisation began in 1991 with the Dahanu Notification declaring Dahanu an ecologically fragile region, with restrictions on the setting up of industries here. Additionally, the most stringent clause of the Coastal Regulation Zone rules was applied to Dahanu. As Dahanu’s environmental lobby kept taking issues to court, a special authority was set up by the Supreme Court in 1996 -- the Dahanu Taluka Environment Protection Authority (DTEPA) to oversee all matters relating to the environmental protection of Dahanu.
The setting up of the Authority has led to a situation where local representatives are forced to provide explanations to an external agency, the Authority, for any development in Dahanu. This has restricted both industrialists as well as the builders lobby that cannot get easy permission to build or start new ventures. Therefore, a high degree of resentment has been built up against the ‘eco-fragile’ tag given to Dahanu.
Gradually public sentiment has turned against the environmentalists, with accusations that the Dahanu Notification is the root cause of the lack of ‘progress’ and ‘development’ in Dahanu. The notification is seen as a fundamental obstacle to growth in the region, despite the fact that it allows the setting up of a wide range of industries. Along with disgruntled builders, industrialists and other vested interests, Reliance is trying hard to have Dahanu’s eco-fragile status withdrawn and the area de-notified, in order to expand its activities.
Until the community of farmers, orchard-owners, fisherfolk, tribals and other residents of Dahanu engage in this struggle to seek environmental justice, there can be no real victory. Legal activism in isolation is plagued by certain limitations. The cumulative positive impact of pursuing the legal route to protect the environment and the community remains debatable. Environmental campaigns that increasingly rely on the power of the law, devoid of public engagement and support, become narrow special-interest issues far removed from the consciousness of the very people they seek to defend.
(Michelle Chawla is a farmer and environmental campaigner based in Dahanu. She is a member of the Dahanu Parisar Bachao Samiti, a group of farmers and other residents of Dahanu which has been campaigning against the Reliance thermal power plant)
InfoChange News & Features, April 2005
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