
Fishermen walking back from the harbour. Adani and Tata power projects in the background.
New Delhi, July 4 : It is a well known fact that World Bank has been pushing for the water privatisation in various countries by lending to water corporations and prescriptions and recommendations for water sector reforms to governments. The Bank has facilitated water grabbing too by having funded more than 500 dams in 92 countries and with its continued investment in thermal and hydro power plants continues to threaten the right to water of communities. International Finance Corporation, IFC, the private lending arm of the World Bank has been involved in direct and indirect funding of a number of the power plants in past few years. One such project is being developed by Tata Power in Mundra, on the coast of Kutch, Gujarat inside the Mundra Special Economic Zone (SEZ) developed by Adani. Machimaar Adhikar Sangharsh Sangathan (MASS), a fish workers group, has been struggling to defend their livelihood sources and save the coasts from complete destruction by construction of nearly 22,000 MW capacity power plants in a 70 km stretch.
An independent fact finding headed by Retd. Chief Justice of Sikkim High Court, S N Bhargava investigated the claims made by MASS of gross social and environmental violations by the Tata Power. The team’s report titled as ‘the Real cost of Power’ heavily criticised the role of the company and the financial insitutions backing the project. It said “the (Tata Mundra Ultra Mega) project has disproportionately high social, environmental, and economic costs. The company, the licensing agencies of the Government of Gujarat and India, and the national and international financial institutions have either ignored or willfully neglected the high social and environmental costs and did little to mitigate them”. The report further added, “The Social Impact Assessment and Environmental Impact Assessment are misleading and erroneous, having excluded a large number of communities whose loss of livelihood was overlooked. Cumulative impact studies required to understand the overall impacts were not done. The governments and the IFIs are equally complicit in the violations by the company.”
The panel recommends that “International Financial Institutions should undertake an immediate review of the project to examine adherence of their safeguard polices; until such a review is done, their financial assistance to the project should be suspended.” Among the banks in question are the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
Apart from the Justice Bhargava, other members of team included Dr. Varadarajan Sampath (former Ministry of Earth Sciences Advisor of the Government of India); distinguished journalist and author Praful Bidwai; Jarjum Ete (former Chairperson of Commission for Women in Arunachal Pradesh), and Soumya Dutta (National Convener of the Bharat Jan Vigyan Jatha). The team visited Mundra in April and May 2012, met senior company staff including its CEO Mr. KK Sharma, held meetings with affected communities and perused voluminous documents to inform its findings.
It needs to be noted that MASS has already filed a complaint with the ombudsman, CAO of IFC, which is investigating the violations by the company since June 2011.
Tata Mundra Power plant is one amongst the many thermal and nuclear power plants to be set up along side mainland India’s 5700 kms coastline. Nearly 55,000 MW of coal and gas based thermal power plants and 15,800 MW of nuclear power plants are either built or are in different stages if development alongside India’s coast apart from numerous ports, chemical industries, SEZs, refineries, and urbanisation. All these power plants will utilise water from the sea and also the ground water. These plants will release hot water, radioactive material and other industrial pollutants with massive adverse implications for the marine ecology and the coastal eco-system which will in turn threaten the livelihood of millions of the fishworkers, salt pan workers, pastoral and farming communities.
The report in findings also mentioned, “the project has caused drastic reduction in fish catches, destroying the livelihoods of local fisher-folk. Available fish-catch data indicate considerable reduction in fish catch in the past three years since the adjacent Adani plant was commissioned, which has been exacerbated by the partial commissioning of Tata Mundra. Communities fear total loss of aquatic wealth when the project is fully operational, along with their livelihoods as fisher-folk—a clear violation of IFC policies.”
Urging the Government of India and Gujarat to put a moratorium on permission to any more industry/power plants in Mundra / Kutch urged the international financial institutions to undertake an immediate review of the project to examine adherence of their safeguard polices; suspend financial assistance until such a review is done; putting in place an independent monitoring mechanism to ensure strict compliance of their safeguard policies. It added, meanwhile, the national financial institutions should adopt social and environmental policies and implement them scrupulously in this project. The implementation should be monitored by independent agencies, which include the affected people’s representatives.
The report is a timely warning for unplanned growth on India’s coast and a complete disregard for comprehensive environmental and ecological assessment, since the impacts will not remain limited to the coasts itself and will impact life and environment in hinterland too. One can only hope that under the resistance and pressure from people’s movements and various other institutions the governments will pay attention. World Bank and other IFIs and national Banks and FIs, like State Bank of India, India Infrastructure Finance Company Ltd., Housing and Urban Development Corporation Ltd., Oriental Bank of Commerce, Vijaya Bank, State Bank of Bikaner & Jaipur, State Bank of Hyderabad, State Bank of Travancore, State Bank of Indore and ors can’t continue to hide behidn the government laws and regulations. They have to take responsibility for the businesses they fund and support through the public money.
The report hopefully will feed in to the CAO process and MASS members will have respite from the destruction unleashed on their shores by the corporations like Adani, Tata and others.