PUBLIC HEARING WITHOUT THE PUBLIC by Shriprakash

PUBLIC HEARING WITHOUT THE PUBLIC

UCIL'S 2009 EXPANSION PLANS

 

The much-awaited public hearing by the Uranium Corporation of India Ltd (UCIL) is over.  There were lots of public and there were also lots of policemen and members of different security forces.  For every one person not in uniform, there was one person from the forces in uniform, some wielding batons, others with rifles and some in riot gear.  UCIL has about 2000 permanent workers and nearly 1000 people who are either on casual or temporary employment.  So the total number of beneficiaries is about 3000, if you add the other members in the families of the beneficiaries, then UCIL family has more than 15,000 people.  Though most of the workers are exposed to dangerous levels of radiation, most of them consider themselves fortunate and lucky.  That is quite expected in a country where the wage rates/returns in farming is very low and there is not any other job opportunity.

 

Yesterday 200 villagers of Matigoda entered the UCIL premises and started ploughing the land.  Even though the land was acquired long back, the villagers were paying the tax.  They were not paid any compensation.  Nobody got a job either. The situation became tense. They were invited for a negotiation after few hours. They were taken to the local police station.  The meeting lasted for a few hours and ended with some promises, but no document was signed.

 

The public hearing was held in the private land of UCIL, near the camp of the Central Industrial Security Forces. Early morning, hundreds of UCIL workers and other beneficiaries had occupied the chairs kept in the hall for the public hearing.  The real public, who have lost their lands for the mines and whose health has been damaged due to radiation, had no place in the entire process. 

 

The hearing was held to get the peoples' consent for a capacity addition of 20% (from current 2020 tpd to 2500 tpd or uranium ore to be milled) and for another tailing pond to house the radioactive mill tailing.  The total tailing that will be let off in the pond will be about 850,000 tons per year.  About 15 acres of forest land has also been sought for these.  UCIL got all what they sought.

 

UCIL sponsored group carrying different banners supporting UCIL and its activities came and entered in the venue and placed their banners. Some of these banners were carried by small children, who did not understand the meaning of what was written on them.  One banner carried by the supporters read: "when compared with hunger, pollution is a small issue.  Save UCIL".

 

When JOAR and other groups carrying their banner trying to enter the venue, UCIL supporters man-handled, few women  activist were beaten up and Pargana  Charan Murmu was pushed away. He and some others fell down.  Police and other security forces were mute spectators to this denial of a place to sit and air their grievances.  Finally, the company supporters and the forces pushed the villagers out of the hall.

 

No one was allowed to enter the hall and allow to speck, in this situation JOAR and other organization decided to boycott the public hearing. We also joined them with shouting slogan – "public hearing is farce"- "stop false public hearing"-" land water and forest is ours"   we came out and sat for a Dharna. 

 

UCIL succeeded in convincing the workers that those who were critical of the project were working towards closing down the mining and milling activities in Jadugoda.  The slogans shouted by the workers and other beneficiaries and the placards they were carrying all said about saving UCIL.  Incidentally, the critics position that they are demanding safe operations for workers, people in the neighborhood and the ecop-system was unheard. 

 

Around 11 AM, the General Manager of UCIL read out a document listing the details of the project.  The GM appeared like reading from a science text book.  There were technical terms like Becquerel, in his speech.  A journalist who was covering the event asked one of us: what does a Becquerel mean?  The presentation by the general manger lasted for about 30 minutes.  After this, the organizers announced the names of the speakers from the 'public'.  Everybody was unanimous on one issue – UCIL provides jobs, food, clothing and houses.  All talks about radiation is anti-national propaganda.  UCIL has to be protected at any cost.  There is no need to hear any viewpoint which is against the interests of the company.

 

JOAR and other organizations fighting on environmental issues related to radiation, livelihood issues related to loss of land due to mines and contamination of farmlands and water bodies decided to boycott the drama called public hearing, as there was no possibility of presenting the view of the affected people.  Ghanashyam Biruli, Dumka Murmu and Charan Murmu of JOAR briefed the press.  Among their demands are (a) no new uranium mine  (b) bring the existing mine under the international safety guide lines (c) return of tribal land acquired earlier, but not utilized for mining (d) provide livelihood and rehabilitation to the displace people.(f) clean up of the contamination (g) an independent study about the environmental contamination and health effects among the people (h) continuous monitoring of the water bodies to ensure that the radionuclides do not seep into the aquifer, the life line of more than 100,000 people.  The activists also reiterated their position that there is no compelling need to expand the capacity of UCIL as the country can now buy uranium from international market.

 

 

Ghanshyam Biruli, President JOAR                   

 

Dumka Murmu, Secretary JOAR

 

Charan Murmu, Pargana

 

VT Padmanabhan, Genetic Epidemiologist, Bangalore

 

Dr Meher Engineer, Physicist, Ex Director, Bose Institute, Calcutta

 

Pradip Dutta, Writer and People Science Activist, Calcutta

 

Shriprakash, Film maker, Ranchi

 

Note- Please find attachments of comment on the EIA/EMP reports and some pic of hearing