India / "STOP NUCLEAR POWER PLANT AT HARIPUR" - National Fishworkers’ Forum's Protest and Call to All Concerned

As an ostensible answer to West Bengal’s energy woes, the Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya has announced the creation of a constellation of nuclear power installations in Haripur, West Bengal. The project appears to be a joint brainchild of the Central and State Governments.

The ordinary citizen does not know what is really in the offing. For, secrecy and arrogance have become insignias of the present Left Front Government in West Bengal. But as per media reports, scheduled are 6 nuclear installations of 1650 MW each – involving a projected expenditure of Rs. 60,000 crores. If this is the nuclear paradise that is being planned then this will involve capturing 75 to 100 sq. km of coastal land, leading to eviction of about 50,000 local fishers, farmers, artisans etc. (in the villages of Haripur, Baguran-Jalpai, Saula, Junput, Kadua, Gopalpur, Deshdattabar, Aladarput and Majilapur within the proposed core area of the project). In this declaration of war on poor citizens of our state, the Chief Minister has the NPCL as its ally. It is the NPCL that selected Haripur as the site suitable for the proposed project. The residents of Haripur however chose to differ.

When the team of experts arrived on 17th November 2006, accompanied by battalions of armed police, the local residents blockaded the road and prevented them from entering the area. The attempt was repeated on the next day. Thousands of men, women and children from villages around the proposed site blockaded all entry points and vowed to embrace instant death rather than rotting through generations as evicted refugees exposed to nuclear menace. The high power team was compelled to retire and the Government beat a retreat for the moment. The Chief Minister however declared his resolve to carry on the project with the NPCL chairman joining the chorus.

Presently, on the ground, there is a standoff between the local people and the administration.

However, each day the peril looms larger. While scientists, other concerned citizens and worried journalists expressed their anxiety about nuclear hazards, eviction and governmental secrecy, the Chief Minister shrugged off all concerns, declaring them to be rubbish and declaring his determination to go ahead with the project. “We have 235 legislators; the opposition has only 30.” In other words, truth and safety concerns must bow to the might of political arithmetic!!!

In line with this stupendous arrogance the Chief Minister continued to announce his resolve and did so on the floor of the Assembly on 24th November 2006.

This is where outrage is called for. All citizens of India and the world must recognize the threat posed by the project. It is sheer insanity to build a nuclear power plant on the coast after the experience of Tsunami hit Kalapakkam nuclear power plant. It is ogre-like to plan a slaughter of the ecology of coastal land and water through release of hot water and slow radiation. It is the greatest folly to think that one can safeguard against all possible future disasters – whether natural or man made. (One must remember that the project is being proposed on the coast of a bay with a long history of cyclonic and tidal inundations.) It is monstrous cruelty to evict people and extinguish lives in pursuance of grandiose projects, projects that moreover have been repeatedly identified as poisonous pipedreams. It is criminal arrogance to toss mega-projects on citizens without any prior information sharing and consultation with the people. Should the government be allowed to get away with this?

"No, it cannot be allowed to do so"

National Fishworkers’ Forum, as the mouthpiece of the fishers and coastal people, calls upon all concerned to rise in support of the people imperilled by the nuclear project.