by R. Sasankan
Nandigram
in West Bengal, Niyamgiri hills in Orissa, Pen and Jaitapur in
Maharashtra’s Raigad district, Thoothukuddi in Tamil Nadu, and
Plachimada in Kerala: the list of flashpoints for peoples’ uprising
against big and small industrial projects in India has been growing
rapidly over the past decade. Many of these popular movements started as
spontaneous resistance to job-creating projects that threatened to
displace indigent communities from their homes and sometimes turned
violent. The cauldron of popular rage boiled over in Nandigram in 2007
when the Left Front-led West Bengal government attempted to expropriate
10,000 hectares of land to carve out a special economic zone for a
chemical hub with the confrontation between the security forces and the
locals leading to the death of 14 villagers.
The spectre of Nandigram has forever clouded poorly conceived plans to
acquire land by force to house game-changing industrial projects. That
agitation played a very crucial role in wrecking the political fortunes
of the Communist party of India- Marxist (CPI-M) which had ruled the
state uninterruptedly for 34 years. The CPI-M was ousted at the polls by
a newly-formed party led by Mamata Banerjee who was quick to support
the Nandigram agitation and plug into the popular resentment against
authoritarian land grab attempts.
The
lessons of Nandigram have not been learnt and Ratnagiri, in the
ecologically sensitive Konkan region of Maharashtra, may well be the
next flashpoint. The Narendra Modi government has drawn up an ambitious
plan to set up a 60 million ton per annum mega refinery at Ratnagiri
where it is actively trying to persuade the Saudis to invest. The Modi
government is desperate to show that it can drum up foreign investment
in a big ticket project as it strives to make good on a promise made in
the run up to the general elections in 2014 to create 10 million jobs.
That is what makes the proposed mega refinery in Ratnagiri a showpiece
project for the Modi government. The only problem is that it has already
run into a wall of popular resentment against land acquisition from
farmers in the region. Neither the government nor industrialists can
force the hapless masses to breathe polluted air. They may not be
educated enough to comprehend the dangers of each chemical component
spewed out of a refinery. But they do know the horrific risks they run.
The industrially advanced West has been getting rid of their refineries
as the governments in those countries are committed to improve the
quality of ambient air. About 20 years ago, Mobil dismantled its
refinery in Germany which was purchased by the Nagarjuna group to set up
a refinery at Tuticorin in the state of Tamil Nadu. The state of
Gujarat has practically become a refinery hub. The popular perception
all along has been that Indians, more particularly the rural masses,
won’t be too bothered about the quality of air as they grapple with the
misery of poverty.
Ratnagiri
has changed this perception. The people of the ecologically sensitive
region simply do not want the refinery there. They do not want to part
with their land – a throwback to the Nandigram syndrome -- and they do
not want the area to be polluted by a refinery either. This rising
consciousness about the dangers of pollution is good for the country and
the people but the political parties, which see job creation at any
cost as a desirable short-term goal to secure their own survival, do not
seem to respect that sentiment.
The refinery project is considered highly prestigious for the country.
Saudi Aramco, the largest oil company in the world, has agreed to pick
up a 50 per cent equity in the project in which all the three
state-owned oil marketing companies such as IOC, BPCL and HPCL are
partners. This is the first time that Saudi Arabia is making a
significant investment in India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and
petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan can legitimately claim credit for
pulling off a coup.
At one level, the Ratnagiri project has the potential to boost the
fortunes of the party at the polls next year. Maharashtra is a
politically sensitive state where the BJP does not enjoy a majority. The
BJP-led government crucially depends on the support of the Shiv Sena,
an increasingly disenchanted ally. The trouble is that the Shiv Sena is
backing the popular agitation against the refinery project. There is no
evidence to suggest that the local opposition to the project has been
instigated by outside forces. Local politicians have already jumped into
the fray as they stand to benefit politically. The upshot of this is
that the land acquisition move has been stalled, placing a big question
mark on the future of the refinery project.
There was a time when politicians competed among themselves to lobby for
large projects in their respective constituencies and states. This was
considered politically rewarding.That was an inevitable phase in a
developing country like India. But that is no longer the case since
these projects often have very adverse ramifications. An industrial
project holds out the prospect for employment opportunities. Those who
offer their land for the industrial project invariably get preference
for jobs. But now the people refuse to be lured by job offers. This
inevitably is a new stage in a growing economy.
So, what will happen to the mega refinery project at Ratnagiri?
Certainly, it will go into limbo until the polls are over. It will take
at least a year to determine the future of the project which will have
to be reconsidered all over again at the political level. Even if the
BJP returns to power in the state, it will not be easy to revive the
Ratnagiri project which requires 1500 acres of land.
The ideal location for a refinery project is on the West coast. There
are other states on the West coast. Small states like Goa or Kerala
cannot afford to accommodate such a huge project. Gujarat is an obvious
choice but the state already houses two mega refineries of Reliance
Industries Ltd and the 20 MMTPA refinery that Rosneft of Russia recently
acquired from the Essar group. Indian Oil Corporation’s 12 MMTPA Koyali
refinery near Vadodara is also looking to expand capacity.
The project might have been shifted to the coast in Karnataka if the BJP
had managed to wrest power in that state. Unfortunately, it blew that
chance. Karnataka has a fairly large refinery at Mangalore where the
prospect for capacity expansion is circumscribed by the difficulty in
acquiring land. There is also no guarantee that the people of Karnataka
will welcome another refinery on its coast.
This piquant situation clearly leaves the Modi government in a fix: it
cannot afford to abandon the project; nor can it afford to allow popular
resentment to the project to destroy its political fortunes. Experts
have already questioned the need for such a refinery when the domestic
capacity is more than sufficient to meet existing demand. An exportable
surplus does not really benefit the country. In their view, the
fundamental issue of an appropriate level of refining capacity to meet
domestic demand should be the guiding principle that should underpin the
rationale for any refinery project. They further contend that export of
refined products from India makes no economic sense given the current
state of play in the petroleum sector. The argument for the project is
also weakened by the problems of mounting environmental costs and the
lack of land resources in India.
But every industrial project has been driven by the compulsions of
political gains. The political leadership, whether within the BJP or any
other rag-tag political coalition, cannot afford to give up the
project. It is not going to be advisable to split up the project at this
stage and house parts of it in different locations. The project’s
biggest allure was its size – and that’s what piqued Saudi interest in
the first place.