Pollution of the river Chaliyar by Grasim Industries, Kerala

The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has discussed another interesting case (DTE, 2015) where the gross apathy towards the environment and the people was shown by an industry and where the courts came to the rescue. This concerns the pollution of the river Chaliyar by Grasim Industries Ltd. at Mavoor, district Kozhikode, Kerala. The firm belonging to the Birla group had set up a plant along the river Chaliyar to produce rayon-grade pulp, based on bamboo and wood as raw materials. This plant started operations in 1963. The company used a large amount of water (300 tonnes) and chemicals (0.48 tonnes) to produce a small amount of product (1 tonne) and discharged the resulting effluent into the river, downstream of its uptake point. The local community complained about the rise in the incidence of cancer and respiratory diseases in the region due to the pollution caused by the factory. Scientific studies indicated concentrations of some toxic heavy metals to be above the acceptable levels in the river beyond Chungapally, 6 km downstream of Mavoor, where the factory discharged its effluents, indicating that the degradation in the water quality of the river was due to the discharge of industrial effluents from this factory.

Conflict between the industry and the local community started picking up due to pollution problems. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, people from Mavoor and Vazhakad organised a series of protests demanding that Grasim Industries follow environmental norms. Due to the increase in pressure from the community and the environmental groups, the government appointed an expert committee to examine the problem. The NEERI designed and implemented an effluent treatment system. An agreement was reached with the management that the industry would treat effluents properly and discharge treated effluents further downstream at Chungapally, through a 7 km long pipeline. This pipeline was completed after a delay of five years. Meanwhile, it was also alleged that wastewater leaked through the pipelines into the paddy fields adjoining the factory site and was rendering them useless. In 1982, the Kerala Pollution Control Board (KPCB) submitted that the environment management system was able to take care of only 50 per cent of the pollution load. The factory was also facing problems as a result of trade union issues and was closed for two and a half years (1986—88). The factory formally shut down in 2001 after intense protests and agitations against its pollution track record. Seethi (2001) has stated that the company had amassed huge profits during its operations in Kerala for almost 40 years, as the state had given huge subsidies to the firm. It shut its operations without paying compensation for the damage it had inflicted on the environment. The government pretended to be oblivious to the four decades of industrial pollution, which had virtually destroyed a number of villages surrounding this unit, as well as the river Chaliyar and the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of people. The Grasim India management wanted to escape from implementing the major provisions of the Sengupta Committee recommendations relating to pollution abatement measures. If it had implemented those stipulations, the company would have had to bear an additional burden in running the factory. After judiciously invoking a cost—benefit calculation, the company’s management realised that in the prevailing liberalised environment, the import of staple fibre would provide more manoeuvrability, both economic and managerial, in running its units elsewhere (Seethi, 2001).