In the debate between conservation and development, the local population is firmly in support of the cement plant being set up by Hyderabad-based Sanghi Industries near Motiber and Hothiyay villages in the western region of Kutch, Gujarat.
The plant, which has been plagued by litigation initiated by environment groups, is on course for commissioning in March next year, against the original scheduled date of October 1996.
The delay has pushed up the project cost of the 2.6 million tonnes per annum integrated plant from Rs 664 crore to Rs 816 crore. Most of the escalation is accounted for by interest during construction.
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The support of the villagers is understandable. Milk prices in the area counted among the most backward in the country have gone up from Rs 2 to Rs 10-12 a litre, while land prices have gone up from Rs 5,000 to Rs 25,000 an acre.
Sanghi has taken pains to provide them with medical facilities, basic education, fresh drinking water almost a delicacy here and made arrangements to tap rain water for various uses. The company has also taken up large-scale plantation with the help of experts and, although the cement plant is fully automated, employment opportunities both direct and indirect have risen manifold.
It is not clear how much of the welfare work undertaken by the company is motivated by the fact that if the green lobby is after you, it always helps to have the local people on your side.
Company officials are candid enough to admit that it is not altruism but profit motive that has brought Sanghi to the this area.
The area is abundant in limestone the main raw material in cement manufacture laterite, bauxite, clay, silica and gypsum (used as additives), and lignite, which will be used as fuel at the plant.
But the villagers are not bothered about the motive. The once-prosperous region has suffered large-scale migration since an earthquake in 1819 changed the course of the Indus river which flowed through the region until then making it semi-arid.
An example is the Lakhapatha village, whose population has declined from some 35,000 to 60. The main occupation of the local people now is cattle and camel rearing. Farming is taken up subject to the whims of the rain god (the area received healthy rainfall this year after four consecutive years without a drop). The area has very low ground water level and is highly saline.
Sanghi is also setting up a power plant of 52.2 mw capacity, a desalination plant and a jetty to take its product to the target markets on the western coast of the country and Gulf countries. The company plans to export about 50 per cent of its output.
It is the mining and jetty areas that had attracted the litigation on the ground that the former fell within the Narayanan Sarovar sanctuary while the latter lay in the coastal regulation zone (CRZ) and would endanger the mangroves of the area.
However, an expert committee constituted by the Gujarat government earlier this year has said that the cement and associated projects shall have no adverse impact on terrestrial, coastal and marine ecosystems which surrounded the project site and that the region was screaming for socio-economic development.
Besides, the Gujarat High Court, in an order dated June 19, 1997, directed the Union ministry of environment & forests to process the companys CRZ application within four weeks of the date of the order and also clarified its earlier order reducing the CRZ from 500 metres to 100 metres for Gujarat.
The ministry has filed a petition seeking review of the order which has not been admitted so far.