The factories in Bichhri started
operating a few months before the
monsoon set in, in 1988. But within a
matter of months, nearly 40 ground-
water wells as far as two km from the
site of the H-acid factory had turned
black. In early 1989, environmentalist
Kishore Saint came to the Centre for
Science and Environment asking for
help. We requested environmental engineer G D Agarwal, who had by then left the Central Pollution Control Board, to
visit the sit e and advise us. Agarwal
came back absolutely shocked. "I have
never seen such bad pollution of the
groundwater system... and I have seen a
lot of pollution," he said.
We all made a pilgrimage to the
defiled site near Udaipur and were
equally shocked. As Agarwal was then
working as a consultant to the giant
public sector firm, Hindustan Zinc,
situated near Bichhri, he requested
them to help Bichhri by supplying the
village with a tanker of water everyday.
The villagers had by now lost both
drinking and irrigation water. Simultaneously, we asked lawyer M C Mehta
to file a case in the Supreme Court.
In order to bolster the case with
hard data, we also worked with teams of
Roorkee University and the Aligarh
Muslim University to survey the extent
of pollution before and after the 1989
monsoon. The two surveys revealed that
the groundwater pollution was slowly
spreading down the valley which
cradled Bichhri. But these studies also
showed that it would be impossible to
clean up the wells. Only nature, over the
years, could slowly cure Bichhri. For
this entire exercise to be undertaken by
human beings, several sq km of polluted
soil would have to be dug out and
decontaminated, without polluting any
other site, and then, huge amounts of
groundwater would have had to be
pumped out and treated, again without
contaminating another site. It was a task
that would take crores of rupees and yet,
nobody would still be able to guarantee
success.
Our research also revealed the total
lack of the, Rajasthan government's
regulatory capability. Our NGO contacts
in the Netherlands, who investigated the
issue for us, said that production of
H-acid, an intermediate substance used
to make black dyes, had been phased
out by European multinationals some
years ago because of the ban on dumping industrial wastes in the North Sea.
They had found the wastes too difficult
and expensive to treat.
With Europe phasing out production, several companies in India and
China had started producing H-acid.
Indian industrialists were calmly
importing dirty production technology
and putting the country's environment
at stake, while our regulatory authorities
- the pollution control board of
Rajasthan - remained unconcerned.
There was, of course, considerable talk
in Rajasthan of money, rather than the
environment having been the chief
consideration in Bichhri.
For the hapless people of Bichhri,
living off that poisoned land, there were
now only three points of help possible:
Since the people had lost their irrigation water - continuing to use the
polluted groundwater for irrigation, as
some farmers were trying to do, would
pollute even the top layers of the agricultural land and ultimately contaminate even the crops, apart from depressing crop yields - they needed to be compensated financially for the economic losses, together with exemplary damages levied on the polluter so that other industrialists would think twice before undertaking polluting activities.
The villagers immediately needed an
alternate source of clean drinking water,
as permanent as possible.
Finally, the groundwater had to be carefully monitored for chemical contaminants on a regular basis and the villagers constantly kept informed.
Because as long as the water
remained black, nobody would drink it.
But the real danger would come when,
over the years, the groundwater would
start losing its black colour. Villagers
would then think that it is now okay to,
drink, but the carcinogenic chemicals in
that water could still remain in significantly high concentrations. It is at that
time that a monitoring agency would
have to educate people not to drink the
water and request them to put in the
extra labour needed to get it from an
alternate source. After all, pulling water
out of a well in your courtyard, as was
the case in Bichhri, was far more convenient than walking a kilometre or two to a central point where the tanker
would deliver water once a day. That
dangerous situation appears to be
emerging now, more than seven years
after the factories closed, and needs a
swift and careful response.
It is indeed most unfortunate that
the Supreme Court judgement, which
used particularly harsh words against
some polluters, and rightly so, failed to
address these three key points or
addressed them inadequately. In fact, it
is strange that despite judicial activism
in the environmental field, which has
greatly helped concerned citizens seek
some redressal, despite the failure of the
regulatory system, the courts in India
have rarely, if ever, granted financial
compensation to environmental Victims, or imposed exemplary fines - a
strategy used by courts in many parts of
the world, including the United States,
to punish polluters. As a result, the
Supreme Court judgement on Bichhri
remains without any real substance for
the affected, victims as far as their daily
lives are concerned. And it is, for that
same reason, unlikely to deter many
industrial polluters either.
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