Designs on a river system

Plans to develop a minor port at the mouth of the Aghnashini in Uttara Kannada, Karnataka, threaten the river, the local people and the pristine environment. The project was approved in June during the Global Investors Meet in Bangalore. A report by KANCHI KOHLI and PANKAJ SEKHSARIA.

A FREE river in all its true elements is a sight that is increasingly becoming rare in today's world. There are several untold stories of rivers all across India whose growth has been arrested in the name of development and the Aghnashini in Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka is one such example waiting to happen. Over the last five years, the Aghnashini, meaning the "destroyer of all sins", (Agh - "sin" and Nashini - "destroyer") ironically, needs the support of others to save it from the ravages of development.

The area of action has been its exceedingly beautiful, rich and productive estuary about 16 km from the town of Kumta. On one of its banks is the small fishing village of Tadri. Here, less than half a kilometre from the point where the river meets the Arabian Sea is the natural harbour of Tadri. On the other side of the estuary is another small fishing village that derives its name from the river.

The latest assault on the river comes from the proposed expansion of the Tadri port. The project was approved in June this year during the Global Investors Meet in Bangalore and is to be undertaken with the help of foreign investment. There already exists a fishing jetty here built by the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) in 1991, with the purpose of enhancing fishing activity in the region. The expansion of this jetty into a minor port now is to be undertaken with an investment of over Rs. 2,000 crores and the promise of 1,500 acres of land by the State Government. The project is to be implemented on a build operate, share and transfer (BOST) basis by an international consortium comprising Hanjin Engineering and Construction, South Korea, and Zoom Developers, Mumbai.

Tadri caught the attention of "development" planners when the existing Karwar port, the biggest in the district, was taken over by the Navy under its "Sea Bird" project. The Government has been upbeat about the Tadri project and is going all out to see its smooth implementation. However there have been serious environment and social concerns relating to the port construction that have been completely ignored. The Aghnashini is the means of survival for thousands of people involved in various occupations based on the productivity of the river. Estuary fishing is an important economic activity. Best known, perhaps, is estuary shell fish collection by at least 2,000 families from the villages nearby like Aghnashini, Tadri, Kimani and Gudkagal.

Each morning the estuary is dotted with hundreds of people, standing chest deep in water, collecting the famous shell fish of Tadri. It is one of the best known sights of the entire region. Four hours of this gets a person an average daily catch of 150 pieces between October and April and 100 pieces between May and September. The shell fish is consumed locally and also sent to Goa from where it is exported. It is estimated that each family earns about Rs. 25,000 a year from shell fish collection here, making it a total annual income of Rs. 5 crores for the region.

Additionally, people here also depend on the estuary for other occupations including salt manufacture, agriculture and aquaculture. The Sanikatta salt pans that cater to the markets of Uttara and Dakshin Kannada and even Dharwad and Bijapur, for instance, extend over 581 acres in the estuary's backwaters. They are located primarily within the village boundaries of Sanikatta, Mudangi, Gudkagal and Kimani, all around the estuary and the Tadri harbour. The Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP) of the area, in fact, acknowledges that "the Sanikatta salt flats hold economic importance being the largest salt producing unit in this part".

Similarly, the Aghnashini estuary is rich in mangroves, which should bring it under the purview of the Coastal Regulatory Zone (CRZ) notifications. The thickly forested Western Ghats lie only about 15 km east of the estuary. The area between the high ranges and the coast is undulating and is dotted with small hills and valleys. The entire area has high precipitation and is thickly vegetated with several forest tracts, where agriculture is practised in the valleys. The resultant "development" and industrialisation which invariably accompanies a port, will most definitely lead to deforestation, erosion of soil and a loss of bio-diversity. This would adversely affect the watershed area, which in turn has serious implications for the several rivers that originate in the Ghats.

The construction of a port involves large scale work like dredging, construction of jetties and quaysides along with cargo handling and communication facilities. All of these are likely to have a serious environmental impact. Dredging, for example, would considerably change the pattern of the waterbed affecting the ecological balance of the river estuary. With the possibility of heavy traffic in the port, oil spills cannot be ruled out. This would lead to irrecoverable damage to inshore and marine life as well as the unique flora and fauna found in the area.

The issue of the port construction here is all the more pertinent in the light of other development projects that have been proposed here and scrapped in the recent past. The first was a ship breaking yard that came up here in the early 1990s, which destroyed a significant stretch of mangroves. This was scrapped when local residents opposed it on the grounds that it was affecting fish catches and the damage that it was causing to the local environment.

More recent was the proposed construction of a barge mounted power plant (BMPP) here in 1996. The Government of Karnataka had proposed setting up four such plants along the coast. Three were proposed for Dakshin Kannada district, and the fourth for the estuarine belt of the Aghnashini near the Tadri harbour. Seven diesel generator sets were to be placed on a platform and moored on to the river estuary. Liquid fuel for power generation would be transferred to the generators via flexible hoses from a fuel barge that was to be located at some distance. The 110 MW of power that would be generated would be transmitted to Bangalore through a double circuit 110 KV transmission line.

There was widescale protest against the project. There was the fear it would bring about irreversible changes to the environment of the harbour. Water used for cooling the plant would affect the temperature of the estuary water. This in turn would adversely impact various natural factors like the mangroves and the fishing activities on which thousands of people were dependent on for their survival. There were additional fears about the impact of vibrations, the effects on tidal action, and the possibility of increased pollution and commercial activities. The administration seemed to see the logic of the arguments and in November 1999 a statement was issued that the project had been withdrawn in "favour of people's interests".

The relief, if any, was soon dampened by the news of the expansion of the minor port at Tadri. It was one of the nine ports identified by the State Government for development on a BOST basis. Significantly, global tenders for three of these minor ports (the other two being Old Mangalore and Belikere in Ankola, Uttara Kannada) had been called in November 1997, much before it came to the notice of local communities and non- government organisations. Environmentalists now argue that there is no justification for the port coming up when the power plant project was shelved. The reasons for which the plant was shelved still hold; and if anything, the port will only cause much greater damage. In addition, what is worrying is that information on the proposed project is not easily forthcoming. It is not clear whether environmental clearance was granted. There is no study on the nature or extent of impact on the local environment, its effects on the rich fish catch of the area and on the communities that depend on the estuary for their survival. Even if such a study exists, it has not been made available to the local communities.

There is also the valid concern that the establishment or expansion of a port never enters an area in isolation. The infrastructure policy of the State, released in December 1997, had pointed out that the facilities in Karnataka's ports are inadequate in view of the various mega projects coming up in the State in the power, steel and petrochemicals sector. The Konkan railway passes from Karwar to Bhatkal through Uttara Kannada district. This combination is bound to prove to be a lucrative option for several industries to "modernise" this patch of coastal India, one of the few that are relatively clean and untouched. The proposed Hubli-Ankola railway line aims to link the Southern Railway to the coast. Uttara Kannada lies sandwiched between Goa and Dakshin Kannada, both of which are getting saturated as far as industrial development and natural resource exploitation is concerned. Attention is now being diverted to the unexploited land of Uttara Kannada.

The plan for the port at Tadri is very symbolic of this new development and it could well mark the beginning of a phase that could damage the rich and productive forest, riverine and marine ecosystems of Uttara Kannada for ever.

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Major or minor?

THE difference between a minor and a major port is one only of jurisdiction over the port. There are 12 major ports and nearly 150 minor ports in the country. While the major ports are under the Central Government, it is the State Governments that are in charge of minor ports. Size and investment are inconsequential. Thus while New Mangalore Port in Karnataka, which is spread over nearly 2,000 acres, is a major port, Tadri, which is likely to be spread over 1,500 acres and involve an investment of Rs. 2,000 crores, is a minor port. Being a minor or major port only has implications for things like port charges and expansion, and these are regulated by respective governments.

Though the environmental impact of minor ports, like in Tadri, could be as great (if not greater) as that of major ports or any project involving such large investments and land areas, there is no realisation or acceptance of this fact. This loophole is now being exploited to escape the need for environmental assessments and impact studies.

In association with the Transforming Word.

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