Powerless Before A Power Plant

The livelihood of 30,000 villagers and the bio-diversity near Mysore will be at risk if a proposed power plant comes up. But the state is determined to go ahead.

The Karnataka government’s decision to set up a 1,000 MW thermal power plant near Chamalapura village in Mysore district has sparked off a people’s movement. Villagers and environmentalists say the project will sound the death-knell for their fertile land, wildlife and forests in the district’s Heggadadevanakote (HD Kote) taluk.

The livelihood of 30,000 villagers and the bio-diversity near Mysore will be at risk if a proposed power plant comes up. But the state is determined to go ahead PHOTOS: S. RADHAKRISHNA

Unlike the gathering groundswell against special economic zones in the rest of the country, villagers here say that just this one project will irreparably pollute the rivers Kabini and Cauvery and everything within 50km of the plant. Farmer Jayaramu says, “We’ll not give up our lands even if we die. Let them poison us to death. We'll shed blood, but not give up our land.” On September 5, about a thousand villagers gathered at Bheemana betta to offer puja and intensify their agitation. Together, they pledged not to give up their land even if it meant death at the hands of the police.

Their resolve has toughened since then, particularly after police caned protestors on the Bangalore-Mysore highway, badly injuring three people. Congress MLA M. Shivanna, who had joined the protests, was arrested along with activist M. Lakshmana. Though protests against the plant continued for over 100 days, the police action drew angry reactions from intellectuals, environmentalists and politicians. Due to be set up at a cost of Rs 5,500 crore, the plant is likely to displace about 30,000 people from 12 villages. It will also endanger the fertile region that grows sugarcane, ragi, tobacco and cotton. Locals say the land required for the project could go up to 5,000 acres as against the projected 3,000 acres. Further, the plant is expected to generate 5,000 tonnes of fly-ash daily.

Apart from polluting villages and destroying 12 lakes in the vicinity, the pollution could be carried to Bangalore, which is supplied water from both the rivers at risk. The Nagarahole and Bandipur national parks will also be hit, say environmentalists.

In the face of the government’s will to acquire land, the farmers dread the worst. “When (Chief Minister HD) Kumaraswamy visited Mysore district, we went to request him not to go ahead with the project. We were shooed away. Why should we respect such a chief minister if he does not respect us?” asks 50-year-old Mallamma, whose family owns three acres in the village. “Those people give orders on the mobile phone and we get caned instantly. Can't they understand that this is our only livelihood?”

Thirty-five-year-old Sakamma has another reason to resist giving up her land. “We know what our men will do after they sell their land. They will gamble, get drunk and squander the money,” she says. Promises of work won’t budge her either. “I took loans of Rs 2 lakh to put my son through college, but he is still unemployed. What job will they give?”

Villagers are also angry that no one bothered to consult them before embarking on the project. “We got to know about it from the newspapers. But no one was concerned enough to come to our village,” says 58-year-old Puttaswamy Setty. A majority of farmers here own between one to three acres and are either Dalits or belong to the backward classes.

Greens are crying themselves hoarse about the absurdity of the project“Any thermal plant has a direct impact on the environment within a 25km radius. And Mysore is just 20-25km away. There is also a rule that there should be no national park in a plant’s vicinity. But they want to build the plant hardly 50km from the Nagarahole national park, the Kharapura forest, the Kakanakote forest and the Bandipur national park,” says environmentalist Manu of the Mysore Amateur Naturalists group.

He also says that wind patterns show that winds here blow south-west and, therefore, would carry fly-ash to Mysore. “Soot will settle down on the gold-coated domes of the Mysore Palace, the Chamaraja Wodeyar Circle and other heritage buildings,” he says.

Activist M. Lakshmana warns of the increase in local temperatures because of the plant, and how this would endanger the highlysensitive Rare Materials Project, about 12km from Mysore. Lakshmana wonders why the project site was proposed at Chamalapura, when “there are 173 thermal projects either on barren land or by the sea”. Karnataka Rajya Vignana Parishat scientist V. Jagannath says emissions like sulphur dioxide could lead to acid rain and destroy monuments.

The procedure for setting up the project has drawn flak too. “The government put out advertisements of global-level Request for Qualification, the first step in a tender process, not in Karnataka newspapers but in Delhi ones. This was done without holding a public hearing or conducting an environment impact assessment study,” says former minister and MLA Shivanna who hails from HD Kote constituency. He also goes on to claim that the government set up the State Power Procurement Coordination Centre so that a handful of power projects could bypass the procedures of nodal agencies, thus getting easier clearances.

The people of Mysore are slowly realising the disastrous effects the plant could cause. “I am no activist. But we cannot allow a project of this sort if it hurts farmers’ interests,” says Prof Shaila Nagaraj, a lecturer.

Despite vehement protests, that have had Medha Patkar pitching in, an adamant Energy Minister, HD Revanna (Kumara - swamy's brother) says the government will go ahead with the project, and has told the media that Karnataka Power Corporation Limited will be conducting a feasibility study. Reacting to the uproar over the Chamalapura plant, District Commissioner Channappa Gowda defended the plant plan. “Old systems in such plants created problems. But we have new technology which will not cause trouble. I even told the farmers to go and inspect Raichur and other places where such plants exist,” he claims. “We have not acquired land. We are in the process of conducting an environment impact assessment study.” Channappa Gowda took charge in late August this year.

Claims apart, rumour is rife in Mysore that the tender for coal supply to the proposed plant could eventually go to Revanna's wife.

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main34.asp?filename=Ne131007POWERLESS.asp