Lessons from Sterlite Tragedy

Why in news?

In Tamilnadu peaceful demonstration of the Sterlite protest has been violently ended up through police action.

What is the brief account of Sterlite protest?

• The Sterlite Copper Industries is owned by the Vedanta Mining Corporation and setup in 1994 at Thoothukudi, Tamilnadu.
• The industry has been categorized has critically danger by NGT as it releases toxic by-products.
• Local grievances since the establishment of the company has been ignored in the quest for turning Tamil Nadu into the dynamic industrial hub it had become.
• Complaints from locals about the air and water pollution posed by the smelter date back to the time the plant was set up in 1997.
• Since then, there have been several attempts to close the plant only to have them overturned by the machinery of the state.
• In 2013, local complaints about eye irritation and respiratory problems were dismissed by the local bureaucracy.
• Soon after a gas leak the then Chief Minister order the closure of the plant, an order that was overturned on appeal by the National Green Tribunal.
• The plant’s licence to operate expired on March 31 this year, the application for a renewal having been rejected on grounds that the company had not complied with local environmental laws.

What happened recently in Thoothukudi?

• Amidst of various controversies the company has announced that it was investing Rs 25 billion towards doubling the capacity of its existing facility.
• Since March, there has been a series of peaceful protests against this expansion.
• This alerted the state administration as it would have read the signals of a simmering crisis that demanded intermediation between aggrieved locals and the company.
• After 99 days of peaceful protests state government held protestors for inviting reprisals from the armed state security apparatus.
• Which ended up in a violent clash between the police forces and protestors, 13 innocent people lost their lives and several other demonstrators were seriously injured.

What need to be understood from such tragedy?

• Tuticorin tragedy holds a critical lesson for the political leadership of all states that hope to bank on rapid industrialisation to create jobs and move up the development ladder.
• It is that people and politicians do not necessarily view industrial development through the same prism.
• For the former, it can spell dispossession of land or a deterioration of lifestyle, livelihood and health.
• The latter often fail to understand these deep-seated reservations in their quest for the glittering electoral prize of job creation.
• Thus the failure to address the genuine apprehensions of the people imaginatively harmonise corporate action with local concerns.

Source: Business Standard