Following stiff opposition from the residents of Chanasma taluka in Patan district against a proposed landfill site to dispose of hazardous industrial waste, state authorities have decided to indefinitely postpone public hearing to register objections of the people against the project. The public hearing was scheduled for June 11. Regional Manager of Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB), Murali Krishna, said, “The public hearing was scheduled on June 11. But, because of widespread opposition to the project, the project proponents had proposed to postpone it. And accordingly, we have granted the request today. We have asked them (project proponents) to announce the postponement in newspapers tomorrow. The new date for the public hearing will be announced later.” Interestingly, this is not the first time that the public hearing for the proposed project has been postponed. Earlier, the public hearing was scheduled for April 15 during the middle of the Lok Sabha election campaign. However, it was postponed to June 11 due to ‘unavoidable’ circumstances. As per the details available, North Gujarat Enviro Project, a private company, has proposed to set up a common integrated landfill and incineration facility for “treatment, stabilisation and disposal of industrial waste generated by industries in Ahmedabad and north Gujarat”. The private firm has applied to get environment clearance for the project. And as per environmental rules, the authorities are required to hold a public hearing at the proposed project site to listen to the locals before granting the environmental clearance. As per a pre-feasibility report of the project, Gujarat tops the list of hazardous waste generating states in India with 42% contribution to the country’s overall hazardous waste generation. As per officials of the GPCB, currently, there are eight live TSDF (Treatment, Stabilisation & Disposal Facilities) sites in Gujarat. The hazardous industrial waste generated by industries in Ahmedabad and surrounding areas is being disposed of at TSDF sites situated in Surendranagar and Kutch districts. The pre-feasibility report read, “The hazardous waste generated by industries in Gujarat cannot be accommodated adequately at the existing TSDF sites, hence another TSDF site has been proposed at Chanasama village (sic).” The proposed site has been chosen in revenue limits of Chanasma town, covering 27 revenue land survey numbers and spread over around 70 bigha. The site has proposed disposal capacity of 7.82 metric tonne of solid and liquid waste. However, apprehensions of hazardous side effects of the proposed project on local environment like ground water, land fertility and air pollution has raised a huge public outcry to the proposed project, not only in Chanasma town, but also in nearly all the 60-odd villages of the Chanasma tehsil. Umesh Patel, a retired school principal and a resident of Chanasma town who is spearheading and mobilising the residents of the area against the project, said, “We are surprised to see this project coming to our town. We do not have any chemical industry nearby. If Ahmedabad is generating industrial waste, it should be disposed of there itself. Why should our land be used for such hazardous purpose? We are not ready for it at any cost and we will not allow it in our backyard,” Umesh Patel says. “The entire Chanasma town is united on this issue. All the 60 villages of the tehsil are also opposed to the project. A number of village panchayats in Chanasma tehsil have passed resolutions opposing the proposed project and sent it to the state authorities. We have also given representations to Chief Minister (Vijay Rupani) and Deputy Chief Minister (Nitin Patel) in this regard. We have also sent a representation to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” he said. On the objections that they will raise during the public hearing, if and when it is held, Umesh Patel said, “We have been interacting with a number of people who are expert on the subject. And what we have understood is that once we give our objections on merits during public hearing, the authorities try to give suitable justification and allow the project. So, we are only going to put forward our demand (during the public hearing) that we do not want this project here, and that is it. There will be no other argument.” According to Umesh Patel, the land parcels around the proposed project site harvest at least two crops per year. “If this project comes up, the local ecology is going to be destroyed,” he added. Vijay Patel, the sarpanch of Jhiliya-Vasna that shares its border with Chanasma and has passed a resolution opposing the project, said, “The project is not coming up on land parcels of our village. But it is adjoining. And our land parcels will be affected by it. So, we are definitely against it and will strongly oppose it in the public hearing. All the villages in Chanasma are against the project.”
