Utkal Asbestos Limited (UAL) has sued the Bihar government over chief minister Nitish Kumar's remarks about asbestos. The chief minister had promised to “puncture construction of hazardous asbestos factories in the fertile state”. While stating this, he had endorsed a statement issued by Awadhesh Narain Singh, chairperson of Bihar Legislative Council, who said, “buying asbestos is akin to buying cancer”.
For over two years, residents of Chaksultan Rampur Rajdhari village in Vaishali district have been protesting setting up of a hazardous white asbestos plant on agricultural land under the banner of Khet Bachao Jeevan Bachao Jan Sangharsh Committee (KBJBJC). Patna-based Asbestos Virodhi Nagrik Manch, besides Left and Socialist parties, have expressed solidarity with the people’s struggle.
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The district administration had ordered UAL to stop construction after a public demonstration by residents of Mahadharna village on June 14, 2012. Construction restarted on December 16, 2012. However, work was stalled again after protesters blocked the Mahua-Samastipur road for nine hours near their village in December-end.
On February 13, KBJBJC activists met Nitish Kumar and informed him about the plant. He promised to take action against the company and expressed anger over Bihar State Pollution Control Board (BSPCB) granting No Objection Certificates to such a plant. At the chief minister’s behest, BSPCB officials met the residents at his office. They also visited the factory site on March 4 to review the case.
Polluter’s case
In response to the state government’s anti-asbestos stance, UAL filed a case on March 4, this year in the Patna High Court. The case is scheduled for hearing on April 4, before Justice J N Singh.
But the licence of UAL has still not been cancelled. “The company has managed to retain the licence because it has the support of deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar,” alleges Gopal Krishna of ToxicsWatch Alliance.
Ajit Kumar Singh, convener of KBJBJC, says UAL has implicated the protesters in several police complaints. “For instance, they set afire one of their machines and lodged a police complaint, alleging it was done by us. I have video records to prove that the machine was burnt by UAL officials,” he says. KBJBJC activists have given a memorandum to the chief minister, seeking withdrawal of three fake cases lodged in Mahua police station.
Singh says there are three more asbestos plants that have been set up in the state, at Giddha and Bihiya villages in Bhojpur district. The plant at Giddha is operating behind a BEd College, while residents are protesting against it. “In Bihiya, Ramco Industries is operating two asbestos plants amid protests from people although it has permission for only one. A memorandum has been submitted to the district administration and the BSPCB in this regard,” Singh says.
Call to ban asbestos
While addressing health experts, scientists, trade union leaders, academicians and civil society leaders at a conference on environmental and occupational health on December 24, last year, Singh, chairperson of the Bihar Legislative Council had said, “Buying asbestos is akin to buying cancer”. The conference adopted a Patna Declaration, urging the state to ban use of asbestos products.
The same day, Justice Rekha Kumari of Patna High Court had said at a public lecture at A N Sinha Institute of Social Studies that companies which wilfully expose human beings to cancer-causing fibers of asbestos, must be made criminally liable because right to health is part of right to life. Over 50 countries have banned use of asbestos.