Mega project jinx strikes Ratnagiri again, Aramco refinery faces backlash

The villagers have lived an agrarian way of life for generations and fear their livelihoods will be threatened once the plant comes up

On a sweltering May afternoon, more than 15,000 people gather at the Rajiv Gandhi Maidan in the city of Rajapur in the Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra. They are there to protest a new refinery that is coming up in their neighbourhood. 

The refinery in question is the Rs 3-trillion West Coast or Nanar refinery, which once on stream will be the world’s largest. The plant has all the potential to become India’s flagship petrochemicals project, with the planet’s largest oil producer Saudi Aramco as its biggest shareholder. 

Yet the locals don’t see the plant as a harbinger of better times.