Three years ago, to this day, on 28 May 2018, thir­teen in­no­cent Tamil pro­tes­tors were killed in a po­lice fir­ing at the Ster­lite plant in Thoothukudi. Three years on, the protests con­tinue even to­day, with a Satya­graha by the Anti-Ster­lite Protest Move­ment. Back then, af­ter strong protests by the lo­cal pop­u­la­tion, en­vi­ron­men­tal­ists and the Naam Tami­lar Katchi, the Ster­lite plant in Tu­ti­corin, Tamil Nadu was in­def­i­nitely shut down. The non-avail­abil­ity of Oxy­gen in hos­pi­tals around the coun­try, es­pe­cially north­ern In­dia, cre­ated a panic sit­u­a­tion as there was the ab­sence of gov­er­nance at all lev­els. Sens­ing an op­por­tu­nity, Ster­lite man­aged to con­vince the Tamil Nadu gov­ern­ment to re­open the plant for med­ical oxy­gen. En­vi­ron­men­tal and cli­mate change ac­tivist Dr T San­tosh Raj looks into the machi­na­tions of the in­dus­trial gi­ant, dilly-dal­ly­ing of the Tamil Nadu gov­ern­ment and warns both of peo­ples’ ire, should Ster­lite cross the lim­its im­posed by the Supreme Court or­der. 

DECLIN­ING THE PLEA OF VEDANTA TO RE­OPEN their plant, the Madras High Court in its or­der on 18 Au­gust 2020 in­ter alia, in para 583 of the 814-page judge­ment said, “The pe­ti­tioner has been con­sis­tently stat­ing that if their plant is shut the re­quire­ment of cop­per in In­dia can­not be met, it will be a great blow on the econ­omy, etc. The Courts have held that, when it comes to the econ­omy pit­ted against the en­vi­ron­ment, the en­vi­ron­ment will reign supreme. There­fore, eco­nomic con­sid­er­a­tions can have no role to play while de­cid­ing the sus­tain­abil­ity of a highly pol­lut­ing in­dus­try and the only con­sid­er­a­tion would be with re­gard to safe­guard­ing the en­vi­ron­ment for pos­ter­ity and rem­e­dy­ing the dam­age caused.”

The Vedanta group has a record of play­ing with the lives of the lo­cal pop­u­la­tion and us­ing its fi­nan­cial and po­lit­i­cal clout brow­beat­ing the de­ci­sion-mak­ers to toe the line from Orissa to Zam­bia, and from Chhat­tis­garh to Goa. 

The mass up­ris­ing of the peo­ple in Thoothukudi against the plant in Tamil Nadu, pushed strongly by the Naam Tami­lar Katchi, three years ago, led the gov­ern­ment of Tamil Nadu to recog­nise the ill ef­fects of Sterilite and or­der it to shut op­er­a­tions on 28 May 2018. Then and now, the Naam Tami­lar Party has been un­equiv­o­cal, “The Sterilite plant must be per­ma­nently shut and the fac­tory dis­man­tled. Noth­ing short of this is ac­cept­able to the peo­ple of Tamil Nadu.”

The Madras High Court has ex­ten­sively delved into the var­i­ous re­ports of how the ground­wa­ter, air qual­ity has reached dan­ger­ous pro­por­tions around the plant. The judges did not buy any of the sub­ver­sive ar­gu­ments of Ster­lite re­gard­ing this.

Eco­nomic con­sid­er­a­tions can have no role to play while de­cid­ing the sus­tain­abil­ity of a highly pol­lut­ing in­dus­try and the only con­sid­er­a­tion would be with re­gard to safe­guard­ing the en­vi­ron­ment for pos­ter­ity and rem­e­dy­ing the dam­age caused.”

Jus­tice T S Sivagnanam and Jus­tice V. Bha­vani Sub­baroyan, Madras High Court in their or­der shut­ting Ster­lite plant at Tu­ti­corin, 18 Au­gust 2020

Way back in 2008, the De­part­ment of Com­mu­nity Med­i­cine, Tirunelveli Med­ical Col­lege sub­mit­ted a re­port re­gard­ing the haz­ards caused by the Ster­lite plant.  The re­port ex­haus­tively de­scribed that “The iron con­tent in the ground­wa­ter in  Ku­mared­di­a­pu­ram and Therku­veer­a­pan­di­a­pu­ram, the site of the on­go­ing protests, were 17 and 20 times re­spec­tively, higher than the per­mis­si­ble lev­els pre­scribed by the Bu­reau of In­dian Stan­dards for drink­ing wa­ter. Chronic ex­po­sure to iron through drink­ing wa­ter could re­sult in chronic fa­tigue, joint pain and ab­dom­i­nal pain.”

“At 13.9%, res­pi­ra­tory dis­eases were sig­nif­i­cantly more preva­lent in the ar­eas sur­round­ing the fac­tory than in ar­eas with­out in­dus­try and this was much higher com­pared to the state av­er­age. The in­ci­dence of asth­matic bron­chi­tis is 2.8%, more than dou­ble the state av­er­age of 1.29%.”

Cli­matic con­di­tions and at­mos­pheric pol­lu­tion could be the cause for the preva­lence of ENT mor­bid­ity.”

Re­port, De­part­ment of Com­mu­nity med­i­cine, Tirunelveli Med­ical Col­lege

The study also found that there were more peo­ple suf­fer­ing from Ear, Nose, Throat (ENT) dis­or­ders near the fac­tory. Among the ENT dis­eases, pharyn­gi­tis and si­nusi­tis were very high. Myal­gia, or gen­eral body pain, was an­other widely re­ported symp­tom in the study area closer to the fac­tory. “Cli­matic con­di­tions and at­mos­pheric pol­lu­tion could be the cause for the preva­lence of ENT mor­bid­ity,” read the re­port.

Mea­sur­ing the im­pact on young women, the re­port recorded, “Women in the [study] area had more men­strual dis­or­ders, like men­or­rha­gia and dys­men­or­rhea. 

A Di­vi­sion Bench com­pris­ing Jus­tices TS Sivagnanam and V. Bha­vani Sub­baroyan of the Madras High Court dis­missed the plea of Vedanta, in its 2018 or­der say­ing that the pe­ti­tioner was a “chronic pol­luter” and had many com­plaints pend­ing. In April 2018, the Tamil Nadu State Pol­lu­tion Con­trol Board had de­clined to re­new the plan­t’s Con­sent to Op­er­ate cer­tifi­cate for fail­ing to ad­here to the pre­scribed con­di­tions.

13 peo­ple were killed in protests on 22 May 2018. Sub­se­quently, un­der or­ders of the Forests and En­vi­ron­ment de­part­ment, the plant was or­dered shut on 28 May 2018.

Sig­nif­i­cantly, in De­cem­ber 2018, the NGT had per­mit­ted re­open­ing of the plant which was set aside by the Supreme Court in Feb­ru­ary 2019, hold­ing that the NGT did not have ju­ris­dic­tion in the mat­ter. 

The “chronic-pol­luter” Vedanta re­sorted to ex­tra­ne­ous data about Na­tional Air Qual­ity In­dex in Thoothukudi, say­ing that the plant was “safer than Chen­nai” and that the plant had been closed only “to ap­pease the pro­tes­tors,” even of­fer­ing the false logic that the re­open­ing of the plant was sup­ported by down­stream in­dus­tries and the lo­cal pop­u­la­tion. The High court dis­missed these ar­gu­ments. The Court noted that Thoothukudi is the only dis­trict in Tamil Nadu which finds a place in the 2019 list of most pol­luted cities in the coun­try, as per a re­port of the Gov­ern­ment of In­dia, pre­pared un­der the Na­tional Clean Air Pro­gramme.

As the avail­abil­ity of Oxy­gen hit an all-time low, all over the coun­try, Ster­lite sensed an op­por­tu­nity. Ster­lite started pur­su­ing re­spec­tive state gov­ern­ments of Gu­jarat, Goa and Ma­ha­rash­tra for per­mis­sion to re­open their in­dus­trial plants, to ful­fil the cry­ing hu­man­i­tar­ian need of pro­duc­ing liq­ue­fied med­ical oxy­gen. The plea of the  Vedanta group to re­open the Ster­lite cop­per smelt­ing plants was turned down by the three state gov­ern­ments and lapped up by Tamil Nadu. 

First AIADMK and now DMK have given the ap­proval to restart the plant, ig­nor­ing the warn­ings of the Madras High Court and protests of peo­ple in the re­gion, sub­mit­ting in the Supreme Court their ap­proval to re­open the Ster­lite plant with a 40,000 met­ric tonnes ca­pac­ity.

First AIADMK and now DMK have given the ap­proval to restart the plant, ig­nor­ing the warn­ings of the Madras High Court and protests of peo­ple in the re­gion.

This new­found love of Ster­lite for the peo­ple has no his­tory. Mega-rich Sterilite is slow on em­ployee wel­fare. On the con­trary, though the Tamil Nadu Pol­lu­tion Con­trol Board in Sep­tem­ber 2005 had or­dered the “chronic pol­luter” to build a free hos­pi­tal, the fa­cil­ity is still to see the light of the day.

Though Ster­lite had no moral or le­gal ground on the ba­sis of which they could ap­proach the courts for re­open­ing the Tu­ti­corin plant, still on 22 April 2021 the Vedanta group ap­proached the Supreme Court of In­dia for re­open­ing the plant only for the pro­duc­tion of oxy­gen to meet the oxy­gen de­mands dur­ing the COVID19 health cri­sis. 

The move was sur­pris­ing and amus­ing. This sud­den love by Vedanta for peo­ple af­fected by the pan­demic was taken by all with a pinch of salt, ex­cept the Supreme Court, which was un­der a panic sit­u­a­tion, given how Delhi was gasp­ing for Oxy­gen dur­ing that week. The Supreme Court of In­dia failed to no­tice the se­ri­ous ob­ser­va­tions of the Madras High Court in its 18 Au­gust 2018 or­der. There are so many other Vedanta plants in the coun­try. No one ques­tioned the ea­ger­ness and the hid­den mo­tive of the com­pany to open the Tu­ti­corin plant for pro­duc­ing Oxy­gen! 

On 26 April 2021, the then Chief Min­is­ter of Tamil Nadu of the AIADMK-BJP coali­tion gov­ern­ment – Eda­padi K Palanisamy con­vened an All-Party meet to dis­cuss the re­open­ing of the Ster­lite plant for oxy­gen pro­duc­tion. Though, a day be­fore the meet­ing, DMK, CPM, CPI and BJP had pub­licly dis­ap­proved of the idea, at the meet­ing they sup­ported the pro­posal. DMK added a rider that no other ac­tiv­ity ex­cept the pro­duc­tion of oxy­gen should be per­mit­ted and that the su­per­vi­sion of Oxy­gen pro­duc­tion must be done by the gov­ern­ment. 

The Tamil na­tion­al­ist Naam Tami­lar Katchi, Thol. Thiru­mavalan’s Vidutha­lai Chiruthai­gal Katchi and Ka­mal Has­san’s Makkal Needhi Ma­iam were not in­vited to the All-party meet. Later on, VCK, MNM and Vaiko’s Maru­malarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam ac­cepted the pro­posal. 

The Supreme Court of In­dia chas­tised the Tamil Nadu gov­ern­ment for rais­ing law and or­der con­cerns and even re­buked the Tamil Nadu gov­ern­ment dur­ing the court pro­ceed­ings.  

The Supreme Court of In­dia chas­tised the Tamil Nadu gov­ern­ment for rais­ing law and or­der con­cerns and even re­buked the Tamil Nadu gov­ern­ment dur­ing the court pro­ceed­ings.  

Tamil Nadu Ad­vo­cate Gen­eral Vi­jaya Narayan sub­mit­ted to the apex court that the Ster­lite Tu­ti­corin plant can pro­duce 1050 met­ric tonnes of In­dus­trial Oxy­gen, out of which barely 35 met­ric tonnes would be of liq­ue­fied med­ical oxy­gen. Even so, the pu­rity level of the med­ical oxy­gen from Ster­lite is 93%-94%, whereas it should be 99.4% and above. More­over, as the plant had re­mained shut for 3 years, it will take a min­i­mum of 6-9 months to put the com­pres­sion and bot­tling plants to full ca­pac­ity. 

How­ever, the Supreme Court, an­gry at the un­fold­ing sit­u­a­tion when thou­sands were dy­ing by the day, had made up its mind and it or­dered the open­ing of the plant af­ter the Tamil Nadu gov­ern­ment sub­mit­ted the de­ci­sion of the all-party meet. 

It is dif­fi­cult to un­der­stand that the Tamil Nadu gov­ern­ment could not bring for­ward al­ter­na­tive in­dus­tries for the pro­duc­tion of med­ical oxy­gen, given the fact that it is un­vi­able for Vedanta to run this plant only for med­ical oxy­gen needs. 

“Vedanta can open the plant only to pro­duce med­ical grade oxy­gen…The or­der is passed only in view of the na­tional need for oxy­gen. The or­der will not cre­ate any eq­ui­ties in favour of Vedanta.”

Supreme Court of In­dia or­der dated 27 April 2021

The party -Naam Tami­lar Katchi, has stood its ground and con­tin­ues to op­pose the re­open­ing of Ster­lite, tooth and nail. Sad­dened at the sell­out by the main­stream par­ties, the NTK ap­pealed to the Tamil Nadu gov­ern­ment to un­der­stand the sen­ti­ments of the peo­ple of the state and de­clare per­ma­nent clo­sure of the Ster­lite plant. NTK chief See­man warned of se­ri­ous con­se­quences in case Ster­lite made a back-handed at­tempt to re­open its plant. He ques­tioned the lack of ini­tia­tive by the Tamil Nadu gov­ern­ment in ex­plor­ing other av­enues for Oxy­gen pro­duc­tion. 

Sin­is­ter at­tempts at en­vi­ron­men­tal geno­cide of the peo­ple of Tamil Nadu by in­dus­trial oli­garchs, sub­mis­sive po­lit­i­cal lead­ers and an in­sensi

tive ju­di­ciary must be con­tested. 

The Supreme Court per­mit­ted Vedanta to op­er­ate its Oxy­gen pro­duc­tion unit on a stand­alone ba­sis at the Cop­per plant in Thoothukudi, which had been closed for 3 years. The Supreme Court or­der was cat­e­gor­i­cal, “Vedanta can open the plant only to pro­duce med­ical grade oxy­gen…The or­der is passed only in view of the na­tional need for oxy­gen. The or­der will not cre­ate any eq­ui­ties in favour of Vedanta.”

To have some kind of a su­per­vis­ing au­thor­ity to mon­i­tor the ac­tiv­i­ties of Vedanta, the Tamil Nadu gov­ern­ment was di­rected to form a com­mit­tee com­pris­ing of Dis­trict Col­lec­tor, Tu­ti­corin, SP, Tu­ti­corin, Dis­trict En­vi­ron­men­tal En­gi­neer, Sub-Col­lec­tor, Tu­ti­corin, two govt of­fi­cials with knowl­edge of af­fairs, two TN-based en­vi­ron­men­tal ex­perts and two mem­bers from amongst the vic­tims of Vedan­ta’s pol­lut­ing ac­tiv­i­ties. In­ter­est­ingly, the court also or­dered that “The com­mit­tee will be at lib­erty to or­der a safety au­dit be­fore the plant re­sumes and also en­gage with the lo­cal com­mu­nity to as­suage their con­cerns.”

While the first tankers of med­ical oxy­gen have started rolling out of the Ster­lite plant, af­ter a brief stop­page of pro­duc­tion due to tech­ni­cal rea­sons soon af­ter the re­open­ing, there is no pub­lic ev­i­dence of the fact that the “chronic pol­luter’ -as the Madras High Court had called Ster­lite, has pro­vided de­tails of the open­ing of the in­dus­trial premises to the Over­sight Com­mit­tee and whether a safety au­dit was done, as asked for in the Supreme Court or­der. It will also be in­ter­est­ing to note how much Oxy­gen does Tamil Nadu gets out of the to­tal pro­duc­tion of Ster­lite.

From the date of the re­open­ing on 12 May till 25 May, Ster­lite has dis­patched 150.58 tonnes, of med­ical oxy­gen.

As per the re­port of The Wire, “As of 6 am on May 25, 2021, Vedanta claimed to have pro­duced 1,653.64 tonnes of oxy­gen. Of this, 1,491 tonnes of GOX was just wasted. The quan­tum dis­patched for med­ical use in tankers till date is 150.58 tonnes, which is a tenth of what was wasted.”

Chen­nai-based writer and so­cial ac­tivist Nityanand Ja­yara­man of the Thoothukudi cam­paign against Vedanta, in his story in The Wire has raised fears that there is more to it than meets the eye. He says, “Vedan­ta’s of­fer re­mains an empty promise that is in­sep­a­ra­ble from its in­ten­tion to even­tu­ally re­gain ac­cess to its fa­cil­ity. And dis­as­ters con­tinue to cloud judge­ment, blunt hon­est cri­tique and prompt knee-jerk re­sponses as sen­si­tiv­ity over­shadow sen­si­bil­ity.”

Sin­is­ter at­tempts at en­vi­ron­men­tal geno­cide of the peo­ple of Tamil Nadu by in­dus­trial oli­garchs, sub­mis­sive po­lit­i­cal lead­ers and an in­sen­si­tive ju­di­ciary must be se­ri­ously con­tested. The lock­downs may have presently re­strained peo­ple from com­ing on to the streets for jus­tice, but in case Ster­lite uses arm twist­ing or le­gal jug­glery to con­tinue op­er­a­tions be­yond the pe­riod of 31 July 2021 dead­line, it will find the peo­ple of Tamil Nadu at its doors.

The au­thor Dr T San­tosh Raj is a Sid­dha doc­tor BSMS -prac­tis­ing tra­di­tional Tamil med­i­cine, a keen na­ture lover, an ac­tivist for cli­mate change, en­vi­ron­men­tal­ism and bio­di­ver­sity. He is es­pe­cially fo­cused on pur­su­ing de­vel­op­ments at the Ster­lite plant and other bio-haz­ard­able pro­jects like the Adani ports in Kat­tupalli, En­nore (Thiru­val­lur dis­trict near Chen­nai). He is a mem­ber of the En­vi­ron­men­tal Wing of the Naam Tami­lar Party. The views ex­pressed here are his own.