Three years after shutdown, Tamil Nadu to reopen Sterlite plant for oxygen

MOVING TO ease the oxygen scarcity that has hit efforts to sort out the Covid disaster, an all-party assembly convened by Chief Minister E Ok Palaniswami in Tamil Nadu Monday reached a consensus to reopen the controversial Sterlite copper smelting plant in Thoothukudi on a “temporary basis” for 4 months.
The settlement comes practically three years after the state authorities shut down the plant, which is owned by Vedanta Ltd, following the deaths in police firing of 13 individuals who have been a part of heated protests over environmental considerations associated to its operations.
The all-party assembly was held in Chennai after a public listening to known as by the Thoothukudi district administration Friday didn’t persuade native residents concerning the “emergency requirement” to reopen the plant to supply medical oxygen.
According to Vedanta, the plant has a manufacturing capability of 1,000 metric tonnes of oxygen. Last week, the corporate had moved a petition in Supreme Court assuring that it may produce oxygen within the plant if it was allowed to reopen. The Central Government and the Supreme Court had favoured the concept, however the Tamil Nadu authorities opposed it.
The apex court docket then prompt that the state ought to pursue the problem contemplating the emergency requirement in Tamil Nadu and different states.

On Sunday, Chief Minister Palaniswami wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging him to right away cancel the diversion of 80 MTs of oxygen to Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. He mentioned Tamil Nadu would quickly require as much as 450 MT oxygen shortly, which is greater than its present manufacturing capability, and identified that the nationwide allotment plan had earmarked solely 220 MT for the state.
Monday’s all-party assembly was attended by representatives of all main events, together with the primary Opposition DMK. The events additionally determined to kind a committee headed by the District Collector and SP, and together with representatives of the federal government in addition to native residents, to reopen the plant.
A senior official of the AIADMK authorities confirmed that the plant will likely be allowed to fabricate oxygen for “four months”. “There is an agreement that operations attached to the oxygen plant will be done in a manner that will keep public representatives informed. There is also a provision to extend the four-month period for further operations if the oxygen requirements continue,” the official instructed The Indian Express.
DMK MP Kanimozhi, who represented the Opposition, mentioned that solely operations of the oxygen-generation facility on the plant will likely be allowed “considering the pandemic situation”. It has been agreed that “no other plant operations or production at the copper plant will be allowed during this temporary period”, she mentioned.
According to Kanimozhi, the state authorities ought to be sure that the short-term permission being granted wouldn’t be misused in a later stage to reopen the whole plant. “Only their technicians will be allowed to access the plant during this period, and meeting the medical oxygen requirement of Tamil Nadu will be the first priority,” she mentioned.
Vedanta mentioned in a press release: “We are committed to making the entire production capacity of 1000 tonnes available for the purpose of producing medical grade oxygen, and are already working with experts on how best to resolve the logistics of dispatching thus to critical areas in TN on priority, and subsequently across the nation.”

The plant had been going through protests ever since its entry into the state in 1994 over its industrial operations that, native residents and protesters say, have severely affected the inhabitants’s well being.
The protests, which have been principally peaceable, escalated in February 2018 following studies of Sterlite’s growth plans. The plant was ordered to close down by the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board and the state authorities over environmental violations — the case continues to be pending within the Supreme Court. On May 22, 2018, 13 folks have been killed and several other others have been injured when the police opened fireplace on protesters throughout an indication.