Shambavi River Protection Committee

Kadandale Post, Karkala Taluk, Dakshina Kannada Tel: 08258-87239

Bangalore Contact Address: Managing Director, Hotel Woodlands, Bangalore

Tel: 2225111

PRESS RELEASE

Press Club of Bangalore, 24 September 1997, 12.30 p.m.

Since December 1996, a huge factory has been constructed over 50 acres of agricultural land, 10 metres from the Shambavi river in Kadandale village of Dakshina Kannada. The local people were totally unawares of what the industry was for when they brought it to the notice of the District Commissioner in a representation on 22 January 1997. It was only later that it came to be known that the construction had begun though none of the statutory clearances such as from the Panchayat, Ministry of Environment and Forests, the Dept. Of Ecology and Environment and the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board had been obtained, and that the industry was being set up by an US-Indian joint venture of Engelhard Highland Pvt. Ltd. to manufacture dyes and pigments to be entirely used in the manufacture of dollars in the USA.

Our immediate response was why in Kadandale? The total produce from the factory would be hardly a few truck loads a month, and it does not make sense to ship it all the way from India to the USA. Further, dyes and pigment manufacture is one of the most hazardous processes known on earth, and in India such an industry must obtain a clearance from the Ministry of Environment and Forests including site clearance before they start any work. Is this a case of dumping hazardous industry in the third world, as the same cannot come up under the strict envrionment control laws of the USA, we wonder?

The site where the illegal industry has come up (encl. pictures) is at the foothills of the Western Ghats. The holy Shambavi river, with its crystal clear waters provides the irrigation and drinking needs of over 30 villages, and the industry is coming up very much in the midst of a thickly wooded region and adjacent to the Kadandale Gutta Kaadu State Forest. Within 200 metres of the project site are five educational insitutions including the Subramanya Swamy High School, Dakshina Kannada Zilla Parishad Higher Elementary School, a Poor Boys Hostel, and over 200 houses for backward classes and low-income-group.

No site clearance or any other statutory clearance has preceded the construction of this factory. It is very clear that this is an illegal construction and an highly hazardous process that should have been seriously viewed by the regulatory agencies for the strictest of actions for starting constuction without any clearances. However, the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board decided to legalise this illegal facility by according them a No Objection Certificate on 28 February 1997, a full three months after the industry had started construction.

Why did the Board clear the projectb surreptiously? This was the question placed to the various agencies of our Government in our repeated representations, for which we obtained no response whatsoever, even as the construction of the industry was nearing completion.

The issue rocked the Assembly on 29 August 1997 when the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. B. S. Yediyurappa, asked the Government what steps were taken by the Government on our representations and demanded to know how the Government could allow such an hazardous industry to come up without any clearances whatsoever in such an ecologically sensitive region. Deputy Chief Minister Mr. Siddaramaiah responded that the construction would be stopped immediately, and that the Government would appoint an Expert Committee to visit the site immediately, assess the region and recommend what action needs to be taken.

It was announced that a 12 member Expert Committee led by Capt. Raja Rao, Spl. Secretary of the Dept. Of Ecology and Environment would visit the area on 18 September. All the affected villagers began to gather and by afternoon over 3,000 people, including women and children, waited in the hot sun for the Committee to arrive. Finally, only a 7 member Committee arrived at 4.00 p.m. and rather than assessing the region and listening to the grievances of the local villagers, they went straight into the premises of the industry and started holding discussions with their representatives.

We initially waited, but when it became apparent that the Committee was not going to meet us, we went in and demanded that we be allowed to participate in the discussions and that our experts and their opinions must also be heard. We were thrown out along withour experts and so were the Press People and elected representatives of the village.

As night began to fall, and the huge crowd which remained without dispersing got restless, the Expert Committee despite pleas from the villagers refused to assess the ecological fragility of the region. At 6.30 p.m. they emerged from the meeting and were preparing to leave when the villagers gheraoed them. It was only then that Capt. Raja Rao and others came and met the villagers very briefly, and accepted their representations. When requested that they come again the next day during daylight to assess the environment of the region, the villagers were informed that the Expert Committee was leaving the same night.

This was a lie. For we came to know that the Expert Committee dined at the Manjarun Hotel at Mangalore that very night and that too at the expense of the violating industry. The members were very much in Mangalore the next day, participating in various seminars in the Karnataka Regional Engineering College.

We do understand that the Expert Committe need not take us seriously for we are after all villagers? But the manner in which they conducted their affairs in Kadandale raises the fundamental question of whether they are not bothered in complying with the Government’s order made on the floor of the Assembly? We are shocked by the Expert Committee’s conduct and we bring this to your notice with the greatest of seriousness.

Our demand

For the villagers of Kadandale, the issue is very clear. We demand:

· that the illegal construction of the industry must be demolished immediately,

· the strictest of action taken against the officials of the Board who illegally cleared the project,

· actions initiated against the representative of the industry, and whosoever may be involved in dumping this hazardous industry in this region as per the law.

Till our just demands are met we will continue our struggle.

Vasudeva Rao Subbaiah Shetty

Honorary President General Secretary