Locals protest Kribhco's new urea plant

The proposed natural gas-based fertiliser plant of urea major Kribhco (Krishak Bharati Cooperative) has run into rough weather with local villagers lodging a protest with the Union Forests and Environment Ministry against the plant.

The protest was made at a public hearing organised by the ministry at Planning Bhavan in the Surat District Collector's campus on Tuesday.

At present, Kribhco produces 1850 metric tonne of urea at its Hazira plant which uses naphtha as the basic feedstock.

The Kribhco management, trying to take the maximum benefit from the new fertilizer policy announced by the government, has chalked out plans to set up a new plant based on natural gas. This unit, involving an investment of Rs 1655 crore, is expected to produce 3200 tonne of urea.

Villagers and representatives of different NGOs raised several queries at the public hearing. Mahesh Pandya of the Ahmedabad-based Samajik Nyay Kendra demanded that the report submitted by Kribhco to the District Collector about the new plant was silent on the source of water and the discharge point for the polluted water.

Dinesh Patel, deputy sarpanch of Kawas village in the Hazira area, said that, though the farmers of Kawas had given 1700 acres in 1980 for the industrial development of Surat, they had been reduced to paupers as they did not have any employment. "Locals should get priority in employment in the new urea plant," he demanded.

Surat Collector Pankaj Joshi, District Development Officer Murali Krishnan, M L Patel of the Gujarat Pollution Control Board and Pawan Kumar, representative of Kribhco, were present at the hearing.