K. Vasudev Rao Managing Director

Hotel Woodlands

Raja Ram Mohan Roy Road

Bangalore 560 025

The Hon. Shri. A. B. Vajpayee

Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha

New Delhi

22 August 1997

Reg.: In earnest seeking your intervention to stop the establishment of an highly hazardous dyes manufacturing unit by M/s. Engelhard Highland Pvt. Ltd. in the environmentally fragile region of Kadandale village in Karkala Taluk, Dakshina Kannada.

Honourable Sir,

I wish to bring to your kind attention the establishment of an extremely hazardous dyes manufacturing unit in the Kadandale village of Dakshina Kannada district. The project is being set up by M/s. Engelhard Highland Pvt. Ltd., a joint venture of the US based M/s Engelhard and the Mumbai based M/s Highland Pvt. Ltd. The same is being done in total violation of the mandatory requirements of law and against all norms of environmental protection. .

Sir, this industry intends to manufacture dyes that are wholly meant for export to the USA. We understand that these dyes are involved in the currency manufacturing mints. Repeated efforts by us to obtain information regarding the chemicals used and manufactured, impact on health and environment, from the project developers or the relevant authorities have gone unanswered over the past eight months (Enclosed are copies of letters written by one of the Project affected persons to the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board, Dept. Of Ecology and Environment, and Karnataka State Town and Country Planning Board).

Since December 1996, the project developers have started construction of the main plant over an area of approximately 50 acres, and have already finished the superstructure of the main plant (Photographs enclosed). This is a verdant site abutting the Kadandale Gutta Kaadu State Forest, one Subramanya Swamy High School, one Dakshina Kannada Zilla Parishad Higher Elementary School, one Poor Boys Hostel, and over 200 houses for low-income-group, all of which fall within a distance of 200 metres from the project site. Within 100 metres is the perennial and holy Shambavi River, a major source of water for both agriculture and drinking in at least 20 villages.

The construction of the plant has started in total violation of all statutory requirements. The said violations are illustrated further as follows:

· Dyes manufacturing being an highly hazardous manufacturing process, the MoEF has placed it under Schedule I of the 1994 EIA Notification of MoEF. This makes an Environment Impact Assessment mandatory for the project, which has not been fulfilled. Consequently, the project developers have fundamentally violated the main provisions of the Environment Protection Act by not obtaining the Environmental Clearnace from the MoEF prior to starting the project activity.

· No site clearance has been obtained from the point of view of land-use from any of the relevant agencies such as Kadandale Panchayat, Karnataka State Forest Department, Karnataka State Town and Country Planning Board, the Dept. Of Ecology and Environment or the Ministry of Environment and Forests.

· The project is being sited in a rural and environmentally sensitive region marked by rivers and forests in abject violation of the Guidelines for Siting of Industries, 1985, issued by the MoEF in the aftermath of the ghastly Bhopal tragedy.

· A Public Hearing on the project is mandatory prior to clearing the project, even if by the KSPCB. Such an hearing has not been conducted till date, despite pleas to the relevant agencies

However, for reasons best known to them, the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) has provided a No Objection Certificate a full three months after the project developers started construction, i.e. on 28 February 1997. By according the NOC to a violating industry, the KSPCB is itself hand in glove with them, and have thus seriously faulted on major provisions of the Water and Air Acts and the Environment Protection Act, calling to question their integrity as an independent regulatory agency.

We have no doubt that with the clout the industry has demonstrated thus far, they will manage to obtain the necessary clearances some way or the other, and thus burden the hapless villagers to perpetual misery by seriously impacting their health and permanently destroying the verdant and sensitive habitats of the region with toxic wastes. The most highly affected by the toxic emissions of air and water pollutants from the industry will be children and the elderly. Four decades after the Minamata tragedy, our fear is that the villagers of Kadandale may have to relive such tragic experiences, as industries of the developed world dump highly hazardous manufacturing processes in a developing country such as India.

Honourable Sir, we have approached you having failed in our every effort to stop this project by approaching all relevant agencies of the State and the Centre. We thereby appeal to your good offices to immediately intervene in this matter and take such steps as you deem necessary to stop the establishment of the said industry. We will be forever grateful for your intervention if you consider our concerns worthy enough to be raised by your Honourable Self in the august body of the Parliament of India.

Thanking you,

Yours most sincerely,

K. Vasudeva Rao

Encl.: As above