Date:12/10/2004 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2004/10/12/stories/2004101202351700.htm

Back Stiff resistance to Kakinada ship-breaking project

Our Bureau

Kakinada , Oct. 11

LOK Satta, led by the former IAS officer, Dr Jayaprakash Narayan, and several other organisations have condemned the Government proposal to permit ship-breaking on the Kakinada beach and urged it to give it up respecting the public opinion.

Several speakers spoke at length on the perils of ship-breaking at a meeting convened by the district unit of the Lok Satta here on Sunday. The demand was supported by several other local organisations such as the Ratepayers' Association, Jana Vijnana Samithi, Citizens' Forum, the Centre for Empowerment of Women and the Association of Fishermen.

The president of the district unit of Lok Satta, Dr A. Vijayalakshmi, said in her opening remarks that the Government was trying to mislead the local fishermen and the public that ship-breaking would generate wealth and a lot of employment and was suppressing the ugly consequences of the activity such as the incalculable damage to the marine environment. It should be opposed tooth and nail, she said. Echoing the same opinion, Mr D. Surya Rao, President of the Cocanada Chamber of Commerce, said the employment-generating potential of the activity could not be gainsaid but ship-breaking would attract migrant labour, as in Gujarat, and create social unrest. Besides, it would wreak havoc on the environment and fisheries.

"The future of the fishermen is at stake and the general public will also be hit. It has to be opposed. We cannot have it here,'' he said.

Dr T. Patanjali Sastry of the Centre for Environment, Rajahmundry, said ship-breaking should not be allowed not only at Kakinada, but also anywhere on the east coast or west coast for that matter. ''Alang experience in Gujarat has clearly shown that it is an unmitigated disaster,' he said.

Criticising the industrial policy of the Government, especially with reference to coastal areas, he said all laws were being flouted with impunity and the environmental impact assessment studies had been reduced to a farce.

Citing the example of the pharma city at Parawada in Visakhapatnam district, he said the Government was allowing the bulk drug industry to use the Bay of Bengal as a dumping ground for toxic wastes. "The marine ecological systems would have to be studied in totality and protected,'' he said.

Dr T. Rajyalakshmi, another fisheries expert and ecologist, said the shallow bay of Kakinada was not at all suitable for ship-breaking. Besides, it would ruin the Coringa mangroves spread over 32,000 acres. She said that enough data was available with the Andhra University, the National Institute of Oceanography and other institutes that the tidal variations at Kakinada were not at all suitable for the activity.

Mr Naicker, former MLA of Sampara, and several other leaders from the fishermen community vowed to fight the Government move.

Earlier, Mr B. Madhusudhana Rao, environmental engineer from the AP Pollution Control Board, explained in detail the damage caused by ship-breaking and said no application had been received by the board so far seeking permission for the activity.