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Beijing’s green Olympics
Maureen Nandini Mitra, Durgapur
June 17 2005 - Madhab Baru is a worried man. His livestock keep falling ill these days. The cows pass black dung and the goats, especially the kids, suffer from diarrhoea. It’s the black dust from the factory across the road, says the small time farmer of Harirampur, a remote village in West Bengal’s Bankura district.
The factory in question, Govinda Impex Pvt Ltd, manufactures sponge iron. In the past four years, three sponge iron plants — including Govinda Impex - have sprung up in the panchayat area that Harirampur falls in. the plants operate round the clock, seven days a week, belching huge clouds of black and greenish smoke and producing mounds of coal char dust.
The fine dust creeps in everywhere. It coats everything. The crops, the water in the village pond and wells, the grass the cattle graze on…even the people’s phlegm. Villagers say it discoloured and stunted the last harvest of mustard and rice and a few goats died after eating the blackened grass.
Sponge iron plants fall in the “red category”, implying they have a very high pollution potential and can cause serious health hazards. The manufacturing process, which involves reducing iron ore with crushed coal at 850-1050C, releases smoke containing oxides of sulphur and carbon, unburnt carbon particles and silica. The dust is a little less if the plants run their electric dust collecting equipment, called electrostatic precipitators (ESPs). Coal char, iron dust and carbon dust collected from ESPs are also pollutants that need safe disposal.
But the sponge iron factories openly flout state pollution control regulations, switching off their ESPs when they can in order to cut their production costs. Govinda Impex has been repeatedly cited for pollution control violations, fined and even issued closure orders more than once. Yet it continues to operate as usual and still turns off its ESP at night, say the villagers.
A reason for the government support to the industry is the huge revenue it generates. In 2004-2005, India was the world’s leading producer of sponge iron, accounting for 10 million tonnes. With investments of over Rs 5,000 crore, the industry contributes Rs 450 crore per annum as taxes to the national exchequer, according to the Sponge Iron Manufacturers Association (SIMA).
Interestingly, the spurt in the sponge iron industry owes in part to the infrastructural development taken up in China in view of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Rising global demand for steel also increased the demand for sponge iron — a basic ingredient in the steel making process. This led to setting up of several mini sponge iron plants along West Bengal, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar belt, a area rich in deposits of non-coking coals suited for coal based sponge iron manufacturing.
West Bengal has 34 sponge iron plants, concentrated in the Burdwan and Bankura districts, and at least 11 more are in the pipeline. Crowded out of urban industrial areas, these plants are now coming up in panchayat areas, near villages like Harirampur, wreaking havoc on local agrarian economy.
“The situation is far worse in Bihar and Orissa where pollution regulations are less stringent,” says Biswajeet Mukherjee, senior law officer for the West Bengal Pollution Control Board (WBPCB). The state board has shut down four plants and issued closure orders against 10 more. Yet it hasn’t deterred factory owners.
The problem is, about 60 per cent of these plants fall under small-scale industry in the unorganised sector and are relatively easy to set up. The small initial investment of Rs 14-20 crore is recovered in just 12-18 months because the profit margin is huge. An industry insider pegged profit from a mini plant with a 100 tonne daily production capacity at Rs 60 lakh a month. Of course, they keep the production costs low by using contracted labourers for Rs 100 or less a day and ignoring occupational safety and pollution control regulations, which most plants do.
In a report released in April, a special environment impact assessment (EIA) committee appointed by the West Bengal Pollution Control Appellate Authority accused the state’s sponge iron industry of “poor housekeeping.” The EIA team that toured plants in Durgapur, Birbhum and Bankura districts, found the plants regularly shut down their mandatory ESPs after sun down to save electricity costs and speed up the production process. It costs plant about Rs 6 lakh a month to run an ESP continuously. Despite repeated warnings and fines running into lakhs, the plants continue to thumb their noses at WBPCB regulations, much to the frustration of local officials.
The EIA committee also found dust collected from the ESPs isn’t converted to slurry but dumped outside the plant in dry form, causing severe dust pollution. The committee attributes this to “shortage of water and a tendency to cut costs”. Further, there is no system for disposing coal char, which too is dumped haphazardly. A unit typically produces 20-40 tonnes of coal char daily. Mounds of coal char near human habitation cause downwind dust pollution, especially in the summer months.
The most visible damage caused by units located in village and forest areas is to crop yield, cattle health, forest resources and the health of factory workers and nearby residents. In urban industrial areas, the pollution affects human health and quality of life.
The factory workers are perhaps the worst affected. They are not provided with even the basic protective gadgets such as masks, helmets, gloves and gumboots. “Most of us suffer from headaches, general weakness and breathing troubles,” says Rajesh Kumar, a labourer at Haldia Steel Ltd in Durgapur corporation area. Looking at his rust coloured, iron dust encrusted clothes and blackened hands, he remarks, “What next? After this we will all have TB (tuberculosis).”
Since most of these factories have come up in the last four-five years, its still hard to gauge their effect on the health of workers and people living nearby, says Barun Sikdar, an occupational health specialist for the state labour department. “but based on prior studies, its safe to say that the effect on health is chronic in nature and doesn’t have any cure at present.” Sikdar has compiled major occupational health hazards, which include gas poisoning, blood cancer, coal dust pneumoconiosis, silicosis, loss of hearing and diseases due to metal fumes and dust, among workers continuously exposed to sponge iron by products in the Durgapur area. “People living near the factories are vulnerable to the small ailments in lower degrees,” he says.
However, constant monitoring remains a problem, given the large region over which the factories are spread. The state PCB has now come up with alternate methods of making plant managements toe the line. This includes installing a tamper proof energy metre for the ESPs that would measure the electricity used by the system and an electronically controlled interlocking system that would shut down production whenever the ESP is turned off. The board has also ordered all plants to dump their waste coal/coal char in abandoned open cast mines.
“We are learning through experience,” says Debashis Sarkar, an environmental engineer at the WBPCB’s regional office in Durgapur. Last December, the district administration banned further sponge iron plants in the Durgapur corporation area. But factories continue sprouting up in neighbouring panchayats eager to increase their revenue base.
Across the border, China has pledged to spend US $ 12 billion over the next few years to clean up air pollution. Beijing is marketing the 2008 Olympics as “Green Olympics,” claiming it’s not merely about the adding of some green fields, but also sustainable development and environmental protection.” While one nation goes green, its neighbour is courting black.
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