MoEF slams brakes on Nirma cement plant

Thousands of local villagers supported by a motley mix of politicians and activists have been opposing the project through massive street protests and in the courts. Their main fear was that a water body they had built in 2000 to control salinity ingress in the area would be adversely impacted by the project.

The project was cleared by the MoEF in December 2008 after a detailed procedure. The company had submitted an Environment Impact Assessment (EIA),a public hearing was conducted based on this EIA,the company had promised in the hearing that it would enhance the water body. The MoEF’s Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC),taking cognisance of this,had allowed the project and the MoEF cleared it accordingly.

Massive protests immediately followed and farmers went to both the Gujarat High Court and the Supreme Court. Thousands are currently taking out a padyatra from Mahuva to Gandhinagar.

Friday’s show-cause notice,uploaded on the MoEF’s website on Saturday,was based on the report of a seven-member expert committee that visited Mahuva and the project site between February 3 and 5 this year.

The committee had zeroed in on the water body that the locals said was under threat by the project. It said Nirma had termed this,along with the 268 hectares it needed for the project,as a “wasteland” in the EIA report. This terminology was,however not wrong,it said,because the revenue department also categorised it as such.

The committee said this highlighted the need for updating revenue records (see box). The MoEF also said the entire episode could have been averted if the EIA,which was ultimately based on revenue records,was comprehensively correct.

In the notice issued to Nirma,the MoEF said it was because of the half-truths presented before the government by the company (which interestingly the expert committee said was again based on outdated revenue records) had resulted in the clearance and which again led to “genuine misgivings,grievances,litigations,conflicts,contortions and commotion.”

“The EAC might have reasonably recommended differently had facts been placed before it in 2008 without misprision,” the notice concluded.

The MoEF has ordered the company to cease all work,including construction,until further orders. The company has also been granted the possibility of a personal hearing on March 16 or 17,the notice said.

S K Nanda,Principal Secretary of the state’s Environment and Forests Department,said they have not received an intimation from the MoEF on the issue.