Madras HC orders closure of Sterlite's copper smelter

The high court here directed Sterlite Industries, a subsidiary of London Stock Exchange-listed Vedanta Resources Plc, today to close its copper smelting facility at Tuticorin (Thoothukudi), 580 km from here in southeast Tamil Nadu, immediately. 

The order came on a petition filed by a non-government body and some political parties, who challenged the environmental clearance given to the unit, which has been operating for a dozen years. The petition was filed in 1998.

The petitioners included the National Trust for Clean Environment and the MDMK, CPI(M) and CPI political parties. They demanded to know how such a unit could be established within 25 km of the environmentally fragile zone of the Gulf of Mannar. The mandatory public hearing wasn’t conducted, said G Ramapriya, advocate for the Trust, and later pollution control instructions weren’t heeded.

The order came from a two-judge bench of judges Elipe Dharmarao and N Paul Vasanthakumar. “The larger interest of the society should outweigh the interest/benefit of a smaller section of the society for the common good of one and all. In the case on hand, with the ongoing of the activities of the company, not only the area gets polluted, but would have direct impact on the safety, security and the health of the workers”...we are constrained to take this decision, owing to the voluminous material available on record about the negative impact of the running of the industry at the place and in the manner it is being run,” their order said.

Uniquely, their order also directs the district collector to take “all necessary and immediate steps for the re-employment of the workforce of the company in some other companies/factories/organisations, so as to protect their livelihood, to the extent possible”. The employees, they note, are also entitled to compensation from the company, in line with the law in this regard.

There were 1,200 people employed directly and another 1,500 were contract workers. 

The order comes at a time when the company was in the process of investing around Rs 2,300 crore to double its copper manufacturing capacity to 2,400 tonnes a year; the expansion included power plants. It was to be completed next year, after which the work force was to double. After expansion, the company was to be one of the largest single-location copper smelters in the world, with a smelting capacity of 800 kilotonnes per annum.

A spokesperson of Sterlite Industries (India) Ltd said the company was awaiting the full text of the order to decide what to do.

Writ petitions, noted the company, were filed in 1996-1998 in the high court, challenging the environmental clearance and against the setting up of the plant. The court’s interim order of April 1999 permitted the company to operate the plant at its rated capacity, with approval from state pollution authorities. It has since been operating “and has been in compliance with necessary rules and regulations. It deploys the ISASmelt process, considered globally as an environmentally advanced technology. The company is one the largest in the state of Tamil Nadu, employing around 3,000 people and provides indirect employment to a large number of people. It contributes about Rs 1,600 crore to the exchequer annually”, the spokesperson said.