Villagers Oppose Nuclear Plant In Saurashtra

 

Half a dozen villages along the coastal area of Saurashtra’s Bhavnagar district are up in arms against an environmental public hearing on March 5 for a proposed 6,000-MW nuclear power plant.

The plant is expected to come up in Mithi Virdi village and has been tentatively named after it. If it comes up, it would be the second nuclear power plant in Gujarat after the one at Kakrapar in South Gujarat.

The local populace do not want to part with their fertile farmlands, which yield various types of high quality fruits.

Nonetheless, efforts are on to acquire 877 hectare land to set up six nuclear reactors for the plant. The 877 hectares that the nuclear plant will require includes 777 hectares for the project and 100 hectares for its township.

The project land also includes 21 hectares of forestland and the requisite exclusion zone for the six nuclear reactors. Out of this, some 603 hectares fall under the double crop agriculture category. The cooling water requirement for the project has been projected at 41,760 MLD, which will be drawn from Arabian Sea. The plant will require 15 million liters of fresh water per day and the township three million liters.

Among many things that are going to be detrimental to everybody around the project it is the widespread environmental damage that is the main concern. Not to mention the fact that the people in and around the area would displaced mercilessly and would face loss of life and livelihood. This is a major area of concern so protests are on to stop this from happening. It is a must because the lands being used for projects like this must be carefully chosen so as not to cause harm to lives around the area and the environment too.

Environmental activists, meanwhile, have claimed that a “non-accredited consultant — Engineers India Limited (EIL) — was appointed by the Nuclear Power Corporation of India to prepare the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) report for the plant. The activists have moved the Union Ministry of Environment for scrapping the EPH and called for the rejection of the report.

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Keywords :
environment , Nuclear Plant In Saurashtra

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