Anti-Nuclear Struggle At Koodankulam Faces State Harassment

[This is a report on a popular struggle against a proposed nuclear plant in the state of Tamil Nadu]

Many of us, the organizers, gathered at Idinthakarai village and started preparing for our hunger strike from September 11, 2011. Around 3:00 p.m. we received the news that the police were arresting some of our activists at Koodankulam village. Some 500 women had blocked the road and demanded their immediate release. The police relented and the women also dispersed. The authorities invited 10 people for talks but later foisted cases on 510 people. So many cases have been filed against many people. The media covered the event extensively.

DAY 1: September 11, 2011
Considering the Fukushima nightmare, the police harassment and the DAE Chief's announcement that the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP) would go critical in September, we decided to embark on an indefinite hunger strike. We made it very clear that our strike would be completely non-violent and we would follow the Gandhian ethos and practices. Some five to seven thousand people from Thoothukudi, Tirunelveli and Kanyakumari districts gathered in front of the St. Lurdes's church at Idinthakarai. Anti-nuclear activists performed cultural programs, sang social awareness songs, and gave speeches. The local MLA Mr Michael Rayappan of DMDK, showed up and expressed his solidarity with the people. The whole group was observing a day-long fast and at the end of the day we started gathering the names of indefinite hunger strikers. 127 people including 20 women, four physically challenged people, four Catholic priests and three nuns decided to fast. Proper records were prepared about their background, health history and so forth. At 5 p.m., the people dispersed and the indefinite hunger strikers slept in the front porch of the church. Several hundred local people slept around the church to express their solidarity and to provide security to the indefinite hunger strikers.

DAY 2: September 12, 2011
People started pouring in from all parts of southern Tamil Nadu from 9 a.m. There were some 12 to 15 thousand people around 11 am. The Most Rev Bishop of Thoothukudi visited us at 9 a.m. and stayed with us the whole day. He was also fasting with the group. The General Secretary of MDMK Vaiko, and Balaprajathipathi Adigalar also came. The Bishop, Vaiko and Adigalar addressed the crowd and opposed the Koodankulam nuclear plant. Several activists also spoke. We concluded the day at 5 p.m. And the indefinite hunger strikers continued their fast and several hundred local villagers slept around the church. Several media groups were there to cover the event. A medical team checked all the indefinite hunger strikers for any health issues.

DAY 3: September 13, 2011
People started coming in from 9 a.m. and the crowd was more than 10,000 people at its peak. The Tamil Nadu Merchants' Association chief, Mr. Vellayan, came along with his office bearers. They announced their decision to organize protests against the KKNPP in all district headquarters all over Tamil Nadu on September 20, 2011 and a complete shut down in Thoothukudi, Tirunelveli and Kanyakumari Districts on that day. The Manithaneya Makkal Katchi leaders also came and they announced that their party would demonstrate against the nuclear plant on September 23^rd. No government official came to see the indefinite hunger strikers even after three days of fasting. Angry and agitated about this gross callousness of the authorities, some 500 women resorted to block the road and halted the vehicles on the road. With much difficulty, we managed to bring them back to the strike venue. National media reached the venue today and telecast live programs.

Several people fainted today. Two revenue department officers asked a small group of us to go and meet them in the outskirts of the village. They wanted 15 of us to go and meet the District Collector and the Police Chief at the Koodankulam police station. We refused to go with them and asked the crowd for their opinion. They all said that the authorities should come to see us at the strike venue and we should not go to see them. We concluded the day around 6:15 PM.

We received a word from our MLA that his application to speak in the Tamil Nadu Assembly about our struggle and demands was quashed and he was not allowed to speak. This makes us doubt the very functioning of our democracy. Neither the Chief Minister nor any of her ministers has ever spoken a word about us, our struggle or our demands. No need to say anything about our distant Delhi government; they never speak a word about the people or our issues.Indefinite hunger strikers are getting weak; people are getting upset. But the strike continues in a very orderly and non-violent manner. People keep invoking the ways and means of Jesus Christ and Mahatma Gandhi.
Here is a report about the Russian nuclear technology. A report 

(http://www.bellona.org/articles/articles_2011/rosatom_report) prepared for Russian President Dmitry Medvedev by state agencies concerned with the safety of Russia’s nuclear power plants in the wake of the Fukushima disaster reveals that Russia’s reactors are completely under-prepared for both natural and man-made disasters. The report has come from an amalgam of sources such as the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Federal Service for Environmental, Technological and Nuclear oversight, or Rostekhnadzor, as well as Rosatom. According to chief engineer Ole Reistad of the Norwegian Institute for Energy Technology (IFI): “The report reveals deficiencies which have never before been mentioned publicly, nor reported internationally.”

The report claims that Russia’s nuclear plants do not have relevant regulations in place for personnel to know how to deal with large-scale natural disasters or other serious contingencies. It also establishes that electrical and safety-significant systems do not receive the attention they need, resulting in a lack of required protection. The report questions the capability of Russian reactors to remain safe for extended periods of time if cooling systems fail. There is no guarantee that power backup systems will be effective should this happen. Russian reactors are vulnerable to the kinds of hydrogen explosions that tore through three reactor buildings at Fukushima Daiichi.

We demand that the KKNPP be shut down permanently! And our right to life and livelihood be honoured and respected! We want to make our country a world leader with New Energy, Appropriate Technology and Sustainable Development and not a slave of America, Russia and France. We want to leave a safe and healthy Earth, Seas and Sky for our children and their children not nuclear bombs and waste dumps.

Please support us in our struggle.

Idinthakarai Village, Tirunelveli District, Tamil Nadu
September 13, 2011

koodankulam@yahoo.com

Last Rites For Haripur N-Plant

The West Bengal Power Minister hammered the final nail in the coffin of the nuclear power plant at Haripur, telling the State Assembly that  “the state government has decided to scrap the proposal for a nuclear power plant at Haripur". He also said "the present government has no plans to set up nuclear power plants in any other parts of the state." 

We welcome this statement by the Power Minister and see it as a victory of the Haripur Parmanu Chulli Birodhi Jeevan Jeevika O Bheete Bachao Committee's (Committee Against Nuclear Plant and to Save Homes, Life and Livelihood) movement and that of other people's organisations in Haripur and other parts of the state. Especially welcome is the statement against life-threatening and dangerous nuclear power in general, which says that no plants will be set up anywhere in the state.

Related Posts: http://khetmajoorsamity.blogspot.com/search/label/Haripur
                    Economic Times report  
                    Ten thousand people on fast in Tamil Nadu

To Fukushima With Love!

[A guest post by Satya Sagar]

Here is an idea, which not too far into the future will rank as perhaps the finest to emerge in the entire 21^st Century. And not just because this is going to be the shortest Century the human species ever enjoyed on this planet, thanks to Fukushima.  The idea is to send all the supporters of nuclear power from around the globe to the stricken Japanese nuclear complex to help plug the great leak from the sputtering reactors there.

Now isn’t that a sparkling thought – all the champions of nuclear power marching off to help clean up the holy mess created by their beloved industry? A hundred thousand beaming pro-nukes working shoulder to shoulder, pumping water into the reactor core, shifting the spent fuel with their brave and bare hands, absorbing the radiation that would otherwise go into the atmosphere and from there around the globe.

Come on guys, don’t say ‘no thanks’. This is the moment you have all been waiting for. Your moment under the sun, the sun of course now covered by a lovely cloud of radioactive iodine, caesium and plutonium. Finally you seem to have achieved your dream of deep frying the entire planet and its population with a technology you never tired of calling both ‘safe’, ‘clean’ and in recent times ‘green’ too.

Here is the chance to prove that your love for everything nuclear was not just loose, armchair talk. Here is also the time to finally nail the canard that nuclear power always meant the electricity went to the elites while some poor indigenous folk somewhere had to deal with disposal of the radioactive wastes generated.

You can show the world that you are made of sterner stuff- that your heart is clad with zirconium stronger than the one that seems to have cracked at the Dai-ichi plant. That the wonderful engineering you promoted for decades may have once again proved to be flawed but the science behind it is still very sound. As we see now, unfortunately it is very heat and light too.

What a grand spectacle it would make – the scores of nuclear industry enthusiasts: Russian, Chinese, American, Indian, Japanese, whatever – saving the world from cataclysm by putting their well-paid lives on the line.  What are a few gamma rays after all –  equivalent perhaps to having a CT scan done every half a second – think of the great photo opportunity? Imagine the fantastic see-through images we can hang on our walls after it is all over and your profession will finally be hailed as the most transparent on our planet.

You are damn right – those fifty-odd underpaid Japanese contract workers trying to stop the meltdown in Fukushima know nothing at all. Imagine walking straight into radioactive water with slippers on!  They are just some dumb blokes suckered into becoming the latest kamikaze at the service of the Japanese industrial empire. Sure, they are being hailed as ‘heroes’ for what they are doing but if they are allowed to continue like this the rest of us are going to be zeroes anyway!

What is really required in their place now is the urgent presence of all those highly qualified professors, scientists, engineers and pro-nuke media plugs from around the globe at Fukushima. The events in Japan call for the direct involvement of all those who have made a nice living out of peddling nuclear power as the solution to everything from global poverty to galloping climate change.

It is time for all of them to leave the safe confinements of the television talk shows they keep appearing on and catch the earliest flight to Japan. They need not be coy about showing up without Japanese visas too – undoubtedly the lonely guys at the Tokyo Electric Power Company would not mind some like-minded company these days. You can all collectively rejoice at the idea that while you were unable to supply nuclear power to all citizens on Earth you have now succeeded in allocating to each one an appropriately deadly dose of user-friendly radiation. And future generations will surely thank you for the ample Becquerels you have now bequeathed them. (I can picture you guys glowing with pride!)

Pro-nukes who still refuse to go to Fukushima after all these compelling arguments I have made above, should consider disappearing into a suitable hole where the rest of us can never find them any more. If we do, then the fission that is bound to happen will release energies before which even a typical nuclear blast will look like a mere firecracker.

Satya Sagar is a writer,  journalist and public health worker based in New Delhi.

CPI(M) Double Standards: No To Jaitapur, Yes To Haripur?

Paschim Banga Khet Majoor Samity welcomes the CPI(M)’s unequivocal opposition to the proposed Jaitapur nuclear plant and asks for a similar stand on the plans for a nuclear park in Haripur. We demand from the CPI(M) a statement that says that they do not want to put lives of the people of South Bengal and the livelihoods of the people of Haripur at risk with a nuclear plant in a seaside area where the risk of a tsunami is there and which falls within Zone IV of seismic activity. (http://downtoearth.org.in/dte/userfiles/images/Earth_quake_map.jpg.) We demand that the rejection of the Haripur nuclear plant be made part of the Left Front manifesto.
On March 12th 2011, Suhashini Ali, ex- MP and renowned trade union leader from Uttar Pradesh and Khagen Das , MP from Tripura went as a members of a two member CPI(M) delegation to visit Jaitapur. A report of their visit has appeared in the People’s Democracy dated March 20, 2011. (http://pd.cpim.org/2011/0320_pd/03202011_13.html)
Not surprisingly, their report echoes our experiences in Nandigram, Singur and Haripur. We quote below :-
“People are not opposed to development. They said – there is not a single college or hospital in this area. We would contribute to the government building colleges, universities and hospitals but there is no talk of these things. They are opposed to a project that they know, despite all the lies and prevarications that the government is resorting to, will displace them and destroy their livelihoods.”
“The ‘affected’ areas that we visited are extremely prosperous. The farmers and fisherfolk produce the best mangoes and also the best fish and sea food in the region. They are responsible for exports running into crores every year. They employ more than 12,000 migrant workers all year round and their villages exude prosperity and hard work. The landscape around is lush and the waters sparkle. The attachment of the people to their land and to their professions is extremely strong and it is this that explains their determined resistance and willingness to sacrifice. “
“Majid Gowalkar told us, “ I employ 11 people. The government says that they will give us jobs after the project comes. But we are already giving more than 10,000 people from outside work at 250-300 rupees a day. And we are feeding our own families. So why should we accept ruination and then beg for jobs that we will never get.”
“Only 112 persons (out of 2000) who owned only 2 per cent of the total land in Mithgavane have accepted compensation from the state government. None of them reside in the area. Even after minister Narayan Rane announced an enhanced compensation of 10 lakh rupees per acre, not a single person has come forward to accept it.”
“No gathering of more than five people was permitted in the affected area and that, not only would two policemen accompany us throughout our visit but police and administrative officers would be keeping a close watch on our movements to ensure that the prohibitory orders were complied with!”
“The government has responded with repression, arrests, unaffordable bail bonds, threats and externment orders that are being processed.”
“An order(has been given to an activist) by the district collector by sms, informing him that his presence in the district had been banned for a week”;
The report at the end states clearly the demands of this two member team
“1) Cancel the Jaitapur Nuclear Project, 2) Return the lands which have been forcibly acquired and 3) Withdraw all police cases filed against the movement activists and also the ban orders and create a suitable environment for dialogue.”
Dr Anil Sadagopal, eminent educationist and scientist, as a response to the report has asked the CPI(M) three questions, which we give below and which we would like to reiterate:-
1. “Would CPI (M) now endorse your demands and take the Jaitapur people’s battle unflinchingly into the Parliament, insisting on cancellation of the Jaitapur nuclear power plant project irrespective of the Government’s claims of the so-called ‘safety reviews’ and ‘increased’ safety measures?
2. Have the CPI (M)-led governments in West Bengal and Kerala closed the doors of their respective states to moves by the centre to establish nuclear power plants therein? If the answer is in the affirmative, would your party declare this as its continuing stand in the party manifestos in the forthcoming assembly election?
3. Would your party now declare its unambiguous commitment to a national policy of promoting renewable and sustainable energy resources (solar, wind, bio-mass and others) for power production in place of the proposed nuclear power all over the country and raise people’s political consciousness in support of this rational stand?”

No To Nuclear Energy

After the Fukushima nuclear plant accident in Japan, Paschim Banga Khet Majur Samity once again demands the withdrawal of the nuclear plant in Haripur. We repeat: “No Nuclear Plant In Haripur; No Nuclear Plant Anywhere.” 

It is time that planners in our country stopped playing God with other people’s lives. The accident at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan has once again drawn attention to the limitations of technology and the greed of the powerful. In its eagerness to promote the profits of nuclear industry of Russia , France and the USA, the Indian government is endangering the lives of its many citizens who live near various nuclear sites. Haripur is a prime example of this. 

The Fukushima accident has shown clearly that even a rich, technologically advanced country like Japan is unable to predict nature’s fury. In Fukushima, in simple layman’s terms, the cooling system at the plant collapsed, with first electricity failing, then fall back diesel generators packing up, and finally even battery operated back up collapsing. With levels of incompetence much higher in India, this does not seem an impossible scenario in our country. S K Malhotra, who heads the public awareness division of the Department of Atomic Energy has said that in case of an accident or a disaster, the design of the plants is made such "that the reactor automatically goes into safe mode, switches itself off but continues cooling the plant". However, after Fukushima, atomic scientist Dr Gopalakrishnan warns that nuclear safety in India is compromised by the lack of independence in the functioning of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB). 

Television coverage tells us that Japan has sensors in the ocean floor to predict earthquakes and tsunami, that all the people in the area affected by the nuclear plant explosion are being tested for radio activity. Can we imagine this level of caring for people’s needs and competence in a country which falters after 64 years of independence in dealing with diarrohea outbreaks and chronic hunger? Can this Government actually promise the security of the people of Haripur, Junput, Contai and surrounding villages? 

While working on the Haripur issue, we have seen that Government agencies have in fact tried to trivialise people’s threat perceptions. To deal with problems of displacement and discontent arising from that, we have seen that the Government has over time reduced the buffer zone from its original radius of 16.5 km, and has told people that it does not need so much of land for a nuclear plant, as safety standards have now improved considerably. There has been an impression created that life in Contai town will not be disturbed and only 9 villages will lose their land. On the other hand, in Fukushima, the Japanese Prime Minister has asked for evacuation of people within 20 km of the plant.  

If indeed nuclear power is so safe, why do people within 20 km of the plant have to be evacuated? News reports tell us that “radiation levels after the explosion reached the equivalent of what a human being is normally allowed to be exposed to over the course of an entire year. Three workers were being treated for severe radiation exposure. Although experts insisted that there was no risk to the wider public, health officials were distributing potassium iodine tablets to residents who, while awaiting evacuation, were told to turn off air-conditioners, stay indoors and not to drink tap water. People leaving their homes were warned to avoid exposing their skin and to cover their faces with masks and wet towels”.

Unlike Jaitapur in Mahrashtra ,  Haripur is not in the middle of a seismic zone prone to earthquakes. However, it is on the shore of the Bay of Bengal. As the past decade has shown, tsunamis are becoming more and more unpredictable. Even if we do believe that human error will be avoided, in terms of using technology in efficient ways for the good of the people of the area,  what about unpredictable natural phenomenon, beyond what technologists and scientists account for? What is to prevent Haripur from being overrun by a huge wave from the ocean at some point in the future- a wave that is beyond the calculations of the scientists? After all scientists are still not Gods who can totally control or even totally understand nature.

What makes the whole thing worse is that the people of Haripur-Junput do not at all want this bitter dose of “development”. Surveys, discussions, television interviews have all shown that the people are refusing to give their land for the nuclear plant. While their fears of safety are one part of it, the other part is that they are not willing to disrupt their lives which are culturally and economically rich. One wonders why the planners, if they are so convinced about the safety of the technology, do not use a site closer to home - for example the lawns of Lutyens' Delhi?

Despite the TMC’s stated opposition to a nuclear plant at Haripur, the UPA is obviously going full steam ahead with its plans. S.K. Jain, chairman and managing director of NPCIL, stated on March 3 2011 that the environmental evaluation process was expected to be over by 2012, to be followed by land acquisition. The first phase of the project will start within the 12th Five Year Plan Period, probably by 2014. On February 23, 2011, Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office, V. Narayanasamy, said in the Lok Sabha that the Government had not decided to shift the location of a proposed nuclear power plant from Haripur in West Bengal.

While the 2011 elections make the TMC-Congress alliance seem inevitable, one wonders, when it comes to Haripur, whether the alliance will prevail or whether the people’s voices will prevail.

The Parmanu Chulli Birodhi O Bheete Mati Jeeban Jeebika Bachao Committee (Committee Against Nuclear Plant and To Save Homes, Life and Livelihood) is organising a protest meeting at Haripur on the issue on March 16, Wednesday.

Haripur Nuclear Plant: Lies, Lies And More Lies

[ A Press Release by the Parmanu Chulli Birodhi O Bheete Mati Jeeban Jeebika Bachao Committee

(Committee Against Nuclear Plant and To Save Homes, Life and Livelihood) ]

 

About 100 villagers from Haripur and surrounding villages in Purba Medinipur in West Bengal demonstrated in front of the Kolkata office of the Consul General of the Russian Federation on December 22. Their demand - that Russia stop its collaboration with the Indian government for the nuclear power project at Haripur. Arthur Berbst, attaché from the Russian Consulate, met a delegation of five people, representing the Parmanu Chulli Birodhi O Bheete Mati Jeeban Jeebika Bachao Committee (Committee Against Nuclear Plant and To Save Homes, Life and Livelihood).  Shyamali Giri from the Committee insisted that they were not willing to give their land at any cost and would rather die than give their land. Sushanta Bhuiyan of Haripur village stated that no amount of money could compensate for the loss of their homes and livelihood. Banneswar Manna from the same village asked for the Russians to desist from entering Haripur as they would meet stiff resistance.

The villagers also explained to the attaché the economic situation in Haripur, which is not the wasteland it was being portrayed by the Government, but is a densely populated area, with vibrant agricultural and fishing activities. They also told Berbst that not a single Government official had been allowed to enter the area since November 2006, so no inspection or survey had taken place to examine if the site was suitable for a nuclear plant. Nor had they ever been consulted on the issue.

While Berbst assured the delegation that their memorandum would be translated and handed over to the Russian President (who is in Delhi at present) within 10 hours, he also expressed his country’s helplessness as far as choice of the location was concerned.  According to him, the Russian Federation is providing only 30-35 engineers for the nuclear plant and is only giving technical assistance so it cannot put pressure about the site. He denied newspaper reports that  Russia was also providing finance.

While this protest meeting was going on, according to press reports, Sergey Kiriyenko, CEO of the Russian state nuclear corporation, Rosatom, was telling Russian journalists about the corporation’s plans to expand cooperation with India in the nuclear energy sector. He confirmed that the site in West Bengal (Haripur) was definitely the second site chosen for Russian collaboration. According to him, “Today we have reached agreement on basic credit terms. This fundamental pre-requisite is being negotiated by the respective finance ministries of the two countries. They have agreed that the credit will be extended on the same terms as applied to the first and second power units (in Kudakalan).”

The people of Haripur thus met with another set of lies today. Earlier they have been told by local leaders that Haripur was no longer under consideration by the Government of India and that their MP and Minister Sisir Adhikari has received a letter to this effect from the Prime Minister. This has also been proved an untruth today.

Related Post: Protest Pictures 

Letter To Medvedev: Expect Stiff Resistance To Haripur Nuclear Plant

Parmanu Chulli Birodhi O Bheete Mati Jeeban Jeebika Bachao Committee

(Committee Against Nuclear Plant and To Save Homes, Life and Livelihood)

Village Haripur, PS Contai, Purba Midnapore

To 

Dmitry Medvedev,

President of The Russian Federation,

Through Consul General of Russian Federation in Kolkata

22A, Raja Santosh Road,

Alipore,

Kolkata

Date: December 22, 2010

Dear Sir,

We, the people of Haripur-Joonput and surrounding villages, strongly protest the choice of our villages as the site of a nuclear power plant. We have been protesting against this unilateral and undemocratic decision of our Government since November 16th, 2006, when our area was visited by a team of 12 techno-bureaucrats to inspect Haripur as a possible site for a nuclear power plant. The area has been continuously blockaded since then and there has been no site inspection or any other survey of our villages because we have resisted all such actions.

Despite   our continuous resistance to the choice of Haripur–Joonput as the site for a nuclear power plant, we were amazed to hear that on 7 December, 2009, the 68^th anniversary of Pearl Harbour attack, ‘a path-breaking agreement on the peaceful use of nuclear energy’ was signed in Moscow between India and Russia in presence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and yourself, followed by declarations from responsible officials that ‘Russia will set up a nuclear park in Haripur, West Bengal, which will generate 6000 to 10000 MW electricity.’

We object to this unilateral and undemocratic decision, when without consulting us your Government and ours have decided to evict us from our homes and our livelihoods.  Please note the following facts about the Haripur-Junput area:

It is a densely populated area, rich in natural resources. The Indian siting code defines the exclusion area for a nuclear plant as the immediate area within a radius of 1.5 km around the proposed site, which is to be in the direct control of the station. This zone has 19 villages with a population of 9,878, who will be evicted from both homes and livelihood by the project. The siting code also defines a 5-km sterilised zone around the site, which has 125 villages and 74,995 (2001 census), all of whom will be allowed only  limited expansion in livelihood and population. Part of the Contai sub divisional town falls within the 5-km sterilized zone. In the 16-km radius of the plant, where population is at high risk of nuclear exposure in case of any accident, lives a population of 512,278, including the entire Contai town and many densely populated villages. All the figures of population given here are from the 2001 Census and would have increased 15-20% by now.

In January 2010, a survey conducted by the youth committee of the PBKMS of 1,059 families in 26 villages all within 2 km of Haripur of the spot that has been marked by surveyors presumably for the nuclear plant shows the dependence of the families on the natural resources of the area. 86% of the families have given their main occupation as being agriculture or fishing. Only 5% families depend on external factors for their main income i.e. they are Government servants or migrants. The area is rich in natural resources and sources of livelihood and the level of destitution in the area is very low.

The area earmarked for the plant is a producer and exporter of agricultural products like paddy, vegetables, betel nut, betel leaves, coconuts and spices. A huge fishing industry exists there with dry fish farms or khotis providing the livelihood of thousands of permanent and leased workers, engaged in packing, storing and transporting of dry fish alongside the coastal belts of Junput and Haripur. At least 15,000-20,000 people will be affected directly in the fishing industry and another 15,000-20,000 self-dependent villagers engaged in agricultural activities are destined to be evicted, according to a conservative estimate. Apart from sea-based fishing activities and farming, a number of salt factories have been supplying natural sun-dried salt to various parts of India as well as many Asian and European countries. About 15% of the salt supplies of West Bengal come from Kanthi. The nuclear plant with its discharge of hot water into the sea is also likely to affect fish yields along a large part of the coast line, impacting millions of lives and livelihoods outside the immediate area.        
          

Despite systems like the Gram Sansad (village council meetings to be held mandatorily twice a year) existing by which people are to be consulted on development issues by the Government, consultation with people has not taken place so far.Nor have the people allowed any survey or site inspection to take place. The claim of the Government that Haripur is a suitable place for a nuclear plant is therefore totally false. The survey mentioned earlier showed that only 6 families (0.5%) out of the 1059 surveyed had no objections to the plant.      

We, the people of Haripur-Junpoot, have decided that we will not give our land for this nuclear plant. Your Government and ours can therefore expect stiff resistance from us if such a plan is taken up. Many of us have been part of the Nandigram and Singur struggles where we have stopped forcible acquisition of land.  We will definitely now allow our land to go for this lopsided plan.

We would therefore appeal to your Government to support our struggle and to stop any plans for a nuclear plant at Haripur.

Yours sincerely

Cc For your information and action

1.       Shri Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India

2.       Shri Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, Chief Minister of West Bengal 

Related Posts: PBKMS Takes Lead In Organising Against Haripur Nuclear Plan
                    Protest Pictures

PBKMS Takes Lead In Organising Against Haripur Nuclear Plant Plan

[This is a report of our earlier mobilisation against the Haripur plant] 

On November 16, 2006, a team of 12 technocrats, all from the nuclear industry and research establishments, arrived in West Bengal on a four-day visit to inspect seven possible sites for a nuclear power plant. PBKMS, after finding out their plans, organised a blockade at  Joonput–Haripur, one of the chosen sites. About 5000 local people led by PBKMS resisted the entry of the officials on the 17th of November. The Matsyajibi Unnayan Samity (a constituent member of the National Fishworkers Forum) was also an active participant. The blockade received the active support of Subhendu Adhikary, the local MLA, members of most political parties including supporters of Democratic Socialist Party (a constituent of the Left Front).

The resistance continued for the next two days, in spite of a huge police presence and repeated threats of police action. On the 19th, attempts by the administration to come into the area were thwarted once again, while the team of nuclear experts met the Chief Minister. In spite of the very vocal protest by the residents of Joonput-Haripur, the Chief Minister and the experts have declared that Haripur is the chosen site for the nuclear plant – without however inspecting the site, due to the blockade!

The PBKMS members in Joonput- Haripur are resisting the land acquisition for two reasons. One, the Government plans to acquire over 5000 acres for the nuclear power plant. This land is rich and multi-cropped. It is used to grow paddy, wheat, mustard, potatoes, betel leaf and chillies. Over 25,000 people depend on this farmland. It also consists of a sea beach which supports about 20,000 fisherpeople. In addition, the buffer zone for a nuclear plant in India to prevent radioactivity has a radius of 1.6 km where no one is allowed to live. In addition, only 10,000 people can live within a five-km radius, 20,000 within a 10-km radius and 100,000 only live in a 30-km radius. All this means massive displacement from livelihood and homes for the residents of Haripur and its surrounding areas, all of which are rich and thickly populated farmland.

Secondly the residents of Haripur are also terrified of the effects of radioactivity and pollution on their lives. The fishermen fear a drop in fish yields due to the heating of the sea water which will be used to cool the reactor. There is also the ever-present fear of leakages and radioactivity, with irreversible effects on people's health.

It should be noted that PBKMS was also part of a successful Statewide campaign in 2000 to stop construction of a nuclear plant in the ecologically sensitive area of Sunderbans. It has been preparing its members in Joonput- Haripur for the invasion by the nuclear industry for the past 4-5 months. Educational meetings with nuclear experts and street corner meetings and distribution of leaflets against land acquisition and in support of the Singur land struggle were organized. A team of five PBKMS members from Haripur also visited Singur and met the agricultural workers there. The villagers were therefore well prepared for the visit by the nuclear establishment.

We seem to however to be headed for a long struggle, as expensive and unsafe nuclear power seems to be part of the grand design for industrialization that the Chief Minister has for West Bengal. On November 20, PBKMS took the lead with all political parties and unions to form a citizens’ committee “Parmanu Chulli Birodhi O Bheete Mati Jeeban Jeebika Bachao Committee” (Committee Against Nuclear Plant and To Save Homes, Life and Livelihood).

We appeal to all of you to send letters of protest to the Chief Minister of West Bengal and the Prime Minister of India stating that:

i) The West Bengal Government must stop acquisition of prime farmland for non-agricultural uses.

ii) Keeping in mind the inherent dangers, nuclear energy should not be one of the choices that India or any other country makes for fulfilling its energy needs

 (Prime Minister: http://pmindia.nic.in/write.htm  fax 011-23016857

Chief Minister: cm@wb.gov.in fax 033-22145480)

Related Post: Letter To Medvedev  

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