By all accounts, last week has to be one of the best that Indian industry has had in a long time in its battle against what is now called `eco-terrorism' - the campaign run by environmentalists to prevent projects from being established. The Supreme Court struck down what is the last-but-one (right now, that is) public interest litigation against the Cogentrix power plant at Mangalore. While this one dealt with the project's impact on the environment, another petition alleging payoffs of Rs 60 crore is still pending in the Karnataka High Court.On the same day, the Gujarat High Court struck down the ministry of forest and environment's order denying environmental clearance to Sanghi Industries Limited for a jetty for its proposed cement plant off the Kutch coast. A few days later, the same court also dismissed a petition challenging the state government's permission to Reliance Petroleum to use a part of the land in the Marine Park to lay a pipeline for its proposed refinery at Jamnagar.While theSupreme Court verdict was somewhat along expected lines since it essentially endorsed an earlier verdict of the Karnataka High Court last September, the Sanghi verdict is a lot more startling and is a virtual indictment of the functioning of the environment ministry.In their judgment, the learned judges have virtually stated that minister for environment Saifuddin Soz has acted hastily. The court order states that the notes file shows that all officers of the ministry were in favour of clearing the project, as was the expert committee set up under Anil Agarwal. To cite the order, ``The minister.was not agreeing with the views of the officers or of the expert committee. Single-handedly, he turned down the suggestions of his department and directed refusal of sanction''.The committee in fact had said that ``the proposed project is unlikely to have any adverse impact on this mangrove eco-system since it is about 295 metres away from the project site''. It was, however, on the basis of dissenting notesfrom two members that Soz decided to refuse permission for the jetty. The two members had contended, among other things, that there was no detailed plan for the area and that its `carrying capacity' had not been determined that is, how much industry the area can `carry' without damaging its ecology. Since this will take at least a few years, effectively what they were asking for was to stop the project for this length of time.The court has asked the government to re-examine the company's application within two months. It has asked the ministry to keep in mind the project's importance for an area in which virtually the entire population lives below the poverty line, and also the fact that only industrial development can help alleviate their lot since the land is non-cultivable.Nor has the court spared the Sanghis or the Gujarat government for their role in the matter. The court states, for example, that the Sanghis submitted an incorrect map of the area to show that their jetty fell outside the reservedforest, and that the land they took possession of was not the one they had been allotted. The Sanghis, for their part, say that they did not do this wilfully, and this was due to the fact that the area has not been properly mapped. In any case, the fact that the land is part of the reserved forest is not even something that the ministry had considered while rejecting the environmental clearance for the project.According to the Sanghis, delays due to litigations such as these have ensured that the project costs for the 2.6-million tonne cement plant have shot up from Rs 664 crore to around Rs 850 crore. The project was originally supposed to come up in October 1996.Not surprisingly, this is not the only project that has suffered so grievously at the hands of the ecology-brigade. Medha Patkar's public interest litigation (PIL) in the Sardar Sarovar case, for example, has halted construction at the site since January 1995. During this period, the costs of the project have shot up from the original Rs 6,406crore (at 1986-87 prices) to Rs 13,180 crore (at 1991-92 prices). The Supreme Court, in fact, is currently in the process of hearing the PIL in this case.Enron, another company which was plagued by PILs for its Dabhol power project in Maharashtra, had to contend with two dozen PILs in the short span of 18 months in 1994 and 1995. Anxious not to get dragged into court cases as this would have affected their chances of getting lenders for the project, the company spent Rs 30 crore to get top lawyers to try to dismiss the PILs even before they were admitted.In the case of Cogentrix, one of the eight or nine PILs it faced was, for example, essentially the same that was filed against the NTPC when it was developing the project at Mangalore - this project was later put out to bid and Cogentrix won the bid. Since the NTPC PIL was dismissed by the Supreme Court in 1991, the new PIL against Cogentrix was clearly a frivolous one.While it is clear that the interests of the environment have to be taken veryseriously and that PILs are very often the only tool in the hands of an alert citizenry against what it considers to be collusion between the government and industry, it is equally clear that the situation is rapidly getting out of hand and that industry is the loser. The fact that the ministry in charge of environmental clearance has virtually been indicted of being partisan can only worsen matters.
