ANOTHER power project has caught the
eye of the greens. This time, it is the
us power giant Cogentrix's plans to set
up a 1,000 mw plant in the forests of the
Western Ghats near Mangalore in
Karnataka. Environmentalists contend
that the Rs 4,387 crore plant could cause
acid rain over the forests as the discharge from the 4 units of the plant can
spread far and wide assisted by strong
winds. According to them, the decision of the plant to use only imported coal
instead of the Indian variety could prove costly for the ecology as imported coal has a higher sulphur content.
Raghavendra Gadagkar of the Centre for Ecological Studies, Indian Insttute of Sciences, Bangalore feels that the
exact nature of the impact of the plant
needs to be investigated thoroughly.
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