Oil’s Not Well
A proposed refinery project has locals in Ratnagiri district up in arms
On September 9, some 4,000 villagers from the Rajapur and Guhagar talukas of Maharashtra’s Ratnagiri district staged angry protests against the government’s plan to build a new petroleum refinery in their midst. They say the project will force the displacement of 3,300 rural households living in the area.
A joint venture by Hindustan Petroleum, Bharat Petroleum and the Indian Oil Corporation, the proposed 60 million tonnes (per annum) capacity refinery will cost Rs 2 lakh crore to build. The project will gobble up 16,000 hectares of land, which is at the heart of the villagers’ agitation. The refinery project, spread across 14 villages that have been declared an ‘industrial zone’ under the Maharashtra Industrial Development Act, requires the complete displacement of five villages and partial relocation of populations in the others.
Farmer leader Satyajit Chavan says that the refinery, just 15 km from the Jaitapur nuclear power project, will expel hazardous chemicals to pollute the already dank air and local water resources. The project includes a captive 1,500 MW coal power plant, a production facility for plastic and aromatic substances as well as a seawater desalination plant. It will receive crude oil from the nearby Jaigad port and the final processed products will be sent out via the port at Vijaydurg.
Twenty-eight per cent of the 16,000 hectares earmarked for the refinery is irrigated and under mango and cashew cultivation. Chavan believes that besides the noxious pollutants, the plans to level the verdant hill tracts will be disastrous for the local ecology as well as the livelihoods of those living in Ratnagiri.
The protesting villagers are furious with the Devendra Fadnavis government for imposing the MIDC Act of 1961 to acquire their lands. They ask why the Land Acquisition Act of 2013—which mandates that the state government conduct a socioeconomic assessment prior to any acquisition—was not used. “The government is in a big hurry and seems to not at all care about the possible adverse effects of the project,” says Chavan.
Local Shiv Sena MLA Rajan Salvi has sworn to block the project until the villagers’ concerns are addressed. Interestingly, state industries minister Subhash Desai (also of the Sena) is championing the project, which he claims will be pollutionfree. “It will be a green refinery producing advanced emission-norm fuel,” he says. The agitating villagers are far from convinced. They are planning a common front against the Shiv Sena and BJP in the gram panchayat election due on October 16.