Golden corridor turns to rust

Given its proximity to the Arabian Sea and the fact that five perennial rivers empty into the sea within the region, Valsad has also been home to tens of thousands of people, most of whom are dependent on marine and riparian resources for a living.

However, the industrial boom in the late 1960s has transformed the region from an area of pristine beauty and self-sufficient communities to an industrial wasteland. The Vapi Industrail Estate was set up in 1967 to absorb the industrial investment from the neighburing Mumbai. Today, this estate has more than 1.950 industries in 1,117 hectares of land.

Vapi, in Valsad district, has around 1,800 factories, of which roughly 450 are categorised as polluting industries 50 paper mills, 60 dye intermediate producing units, 200 dye industries, 100 pharmaceutical factories, 25 textile dyeing units and 10 pesticide plants.

In the absence of any infrastructure to safely and adequately contain and dispose the wastes generated in the estate, factories have made it common practice to discharge their toxic effluents into rivers, creeks, streams and open land, and dump their hazardous solid wastes on public land or within the estate.

In fact, the Vapi Industrial Association has allowed its members to dump waste on a 0.6 ha plot within the estate. These practices have seriously compromised the quality of life of communities in the district, and damaged the life-support systems the water, the land and the air…

Apart from the pollution load placed by the industries on the environment, the sheer magnitude of water used by the industries has robbed other water users of their fundamental right to clean water. According to the Central Pollution Control Board, Valsad district has at least 17 medium- and large-scale paper and pulp mills. These are highly water intensive, consuming as much as 250-450 cu metres of water per tonne of pulp, and they discharge their wastes into the nearby rivers, Kolak, Damaganga or Par.

That the industrial mode of development in Vapi has ignored local priorities is evident from statements made by local villagers that the state has virtually handed over common resources such as water to industries.

Sumanbhai Desai, a fruit grower from Valsad, explains: “The River Par was dammed in the 1950s to provide water for the Atul Complex (a large manufacturer of hazardous chemicals). The river is diverted, used by Atul and the effluent released for consumption by the public. The Pariyari Khadi has been dammed by Rohit Pulp & Papers. Part of the water from Damanganga is diverted to augment the water supply to Vapi GIDC.”

The people living around the Atul complex and those living around Vapi and Sarigam estate have reported a significant loss in both horticulture and farming. According to Sumanbhai Desai, a fruit grower from Valsad, yields have halved since the industries began operations.

Notwithstanding the damage done to fisheries due to the chemical effluents from the industries in Valsad, the district remains a significant player in fisheries. The 29 fishing centres in the district supplied more than 58,000 tonnes of fish in 1994-95. Fisheries department statistics place the number of fisher folk at 25,000.

Kolak, a village on the banks of the River Kolak, sits at the confluence of the river with the Arabian Sea. According to the villagers, the river receives untreated and partially treated effluents from several hundred companies of the Vapi Industrial Estate. “Usually, the river is extremely polluted and red in colour. But the factory owners must have heard that a team is visiting; so they shut their discharge. The water has looked clean these last three days,” says Haridbhai Tandel, ex-sarpanch of Kolak village.

The discharge of untreated effluents by the industry into Kolak river is borne out by statements made by a knowledgeable local journalist. The (Vapi) estate receives 18 million gallons per day (mgd) of water, but the CETP which went on stream in 1997 has a capacity of only 5.5 mgd. Most of the effluent is released without treatment and flows through the North storm water drains and water courses and enters the Kolak.

Villagers complain that the effluents have virtually decimated the fish stocks in the river and estuary. Mass fish kills are a frequent phenomenon along the coast. In mid-1998, nearly 150 tonnes of dead fish was washed ashore near Udvada…

The claims of the villagers are consistent with evolving scientific evidence that pollutants of the kind that are known to be released by Vapi’s factories can have long-term population level effects on fisheries. Take pulp mill effluents, for instance, Burnison et al report that pulp mill effluents comprise a myriad chemicals that have the potential to cause deleterious effects on aquatic biota in receiving waters.

Further, analyses by Greenpeace have revealed the presence of several persistent organic pollutants in the waste streams from Vapi’s industries.

Although dioxins were not specifically identified, it is well-known that bleached pulp mills are a key point source for dioxins and related compounds to marine and estuarine sediments. Also, several studies link dioxin body burdens to decreased male sex hormones in fish; some reports found that fish exposed to bleached pulp effluents have smaller gonads than fish in control sites.

Residents of Kolak and Warkhurd villages say that the effluents have also contaminated their groundwater, rendering some sources unusable. According to Kolak fisherman Jagdishbhai Vallabh Tandel, the villagers are drinking contaminated water in the absence of an alternative…

The situation in Daman, a union territory on the banks of the Damanganga river, is no different. In both Daman and Kolak, villagers reported that fisherfolk are giving up their livelihoods and migrating to other jobs as labourers on merchant ships or in nearby areas.

Some reports indicate that the pollution has affected even the lifestyle and recreation of the nearby communities. “Our villages had brilliant swimmers. Swimming was a regular event during our festivals… All these celebrations are now closed and our children no longer swim as well as we did,” explains Premabhai Tandel, secretary of BJP, from Daman & Diu…

Although unquantified, there is little doubt that the pollution-intensive development model adopted in Vapi has actually led to an overall decline in productivity of the region. A 1996 study by the World Bank found that, even with very conservative estimates, the annual losses due to pollution and other forms of environmental degradation were the same as the annual rate of growth of GDP for India. In effect, losses due to environmental degradation are nullifying the annual economic growth for India.