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Sterlite Doesn’t Have a Trust Deficit – But Deficits of Legality and Design

Sterlite Doesn’t Have a Trust Deficit – But Deficits of Legality and Design

Thoothukudi, Tuticorin, Sterlite copper, copper smelting, chimney stack, greenbelt, environmental impact assessment, air quality index, sulphur dioxide, SIPCOT industrial estate, SIPCOT, Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board, National Air Monitoring Program,

Sterlite Industries Ltd’s copper plant, a unit of Vedanta Resources, in Thoothukudi. Photo: Reuters/Stringer/File


  • The British multinational company Vedanta Resources has launched an aggressive public relations campaign to restart its Sterlite copper smelter in Thoothukudi.
  • The controversial, and unpopular, factory was shut in May 2018 amid large protests over its polluting activities.
  • The company has also been battling proven allegations of fraud, pollution and illegal operations since the Madras High Court held the closure orders lawful in 2020.
  • The London-based mining giant’s media strategy sidesteps the court’s findings and focuses instead on “external forces” being to blame and that the smelter’s closure harms India’s interests.

The British multinational company Vedanta Resources has launched an aggressive public relations campaign to restart its Sterlite copper smelter in Thoothukudi, Tamil Nadu. On January 26, Republic Day, the Thoothukudi Town Central Merchants’ Association wrote to state chief minister M.K. Stalin complaining of harassment by Vedanta and its contractors, and warning that the latter’s attempts to “convince” merchants to support the reopening of the copper smelter may well end up in “law and order problems”.

The controversial, and unpopular, factory was shut in May 2018 amid large protests over its polluting activities. The company has also been battling proven allegations of fraud, pollution and illegal operations since the Madras High Court held the closure orders lawful in August 2020.

Not surprisingly, the London-based mining giant’s media strategy sidesteps the court’s findings and focuses instead on two frames: one, that “external forces” are to blame for the factory’s closure; two, that the smelter’s closure harms India’s interests.

Sterlite continues to argue that the facility’s closure was a knee-jerk reaction to the manner in which the public protest unfolded, leaving 13 dead in a police shootout. A recent opinion article in The Hindu also reduced Sterlite’s problems to a trust deficit between Vedanta and the people of Thoothukudi.

But Sterlite’s problems run deeper than any trust deficit that can be repaired by building toilets or distributing school bags. The company’s legal legs are wobbly. Instead of trust, the company’s smelter suffers from a deficit of legality and design.

Legality deficit

Spinning the May 2018 protests as the trigger for closure hides the fact that the company is faced with two closure orders, not one. On March 23, 2013, a poisonous gas leak from the factory wafted east to spread havoc and pain through Thoothukudi town. Thousands, including women drawing kolams and morning walkers, fell sick; many were hospitalised. A Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) inspection revealed that sulphur dioxide readings from Sterlite’s sulphuric acid chimney stack were off the charts for tens of minutes about an hour before symptoms manifested among the city’s residents.

The TNPCB shut the factory using its powers under the Air Act 1981. The power to award relief against such orders lies only with the TNPCB’s Appellate Authority. But Vedanta shopped for a forum outside Tamil Nadu, and was eventually heard by the Delhi bench of the National Green Tribunal. The tribunal ruled to reopen Sterlite subject to certain conditions. The Government of Tamil Nadu challenged this order in the Supreme Court on the grounds that the NGT lacked jurisdiction and that this case was awaiting adjudication.

Scenes of protest for the 100th consecutive day in Thoothukudi against the Sterlite unit, May 22, 2018. Source: Author provided
Scenes of protest for the 100th consecutive day in Thoothukudi against the Sterlite unit, May 22, 2018. Photo: Surya, Tuticorin

Meanwhile, in May 2018, the factory was closed again by orders of the TNPCB and the Government of Tamil Nadu. Instead of pursuing appeals in the appropriate fora, namely the appellate authority against TNPCB’s orders and the Madras high court against the government order, Vedanta again sought out the Delhi bench of the National Green Tribunal. Sterlite’s appeal was once again allowed, prompting the state of Tamil Nadu to appeal the decision in the Supreme Court.

In February 2019, the Supreme Court set aside both orders of the NGT for lack of jurisdiction and directed Vedanta to approach the Madras high court for relief. In August 2020, the Madras high court upheld both closure orders and found that the authorities were right to shut Sterlite in 2013 for causing the gas leak, and again in 2018 for a number of grave violations: fraud, improper siting, pollution, illegal expansion, unlawful and reckless handling of solid and hazardous waste, and environmental under-design.

Design deficit

In 2005 and 2007, the company applied for licenses to expand copper production capacity from 900 tonnes per day to 1,200 tonnes per day. In its applications, it claimed the project would require 172.17 ha of land, including for waste disposal sites and other environmental infrastructure. The licenses were granted based on an assurance that the land was available.

However, even at the time of closing, the plant only had 102.5 ha. Vedanta had expanded production from 40,000 tonnes per annum to 400,000 tonnes per annum without a corresponding increase in land occupation.

The Madras high court observed that it “can safely conclude that the act of [Sterlite] was deliberate as a result of which they stood to gain and it needs to be construed as a deliberate deception and anything obtained out of it, should necessarily to be vitiated.”

Explaining the material consequences of the fraud, the court held that the “failure to disclose the actual extent of land held … would have far reaching consequences because increased production would mean increased generation of waste, which obviously would require larger extent of land and this would have a chain reaction leading to various other issues…”

The land issue has also meant that the company doesn’t have room for an adequate greenbelt capable of mitigating ground-level pollution – or to store toxic and solid waste. That is why the company illegally disposed of 537,765 tonnes of slag waste in 10 sites spread across Thoothukudi. The soil in the vicinity of these dumps was found to contain high levels of toxic metals. Remediation of these contaminated sites is the subject of a separate case pending in the high court.

Good industrial design presupposes good siting – and Vedanta’s location is fatally flawed. Established planning principles restrict large polluting facilities to areas categorised as ‘Special Industries and Hazardous Use Zone’. But Sterlite has been allowed to set up in an area reserved for ‘General Industries’, in close proximity to residential areas. The high court has held this location to be illegal.

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So any attempt to reopen the Sterlite smelter is fraught with risks for two reasons. First, the factory’s location is close to residential areas and this isn’t likely to change unless the people of the villages nearby are moved to a safe distance for their own protection. Second, the lack of sufficient land to accommodate environmental infrastructure, including a greenbelt capable of containing pollution from a factory of this size, all but guarantees a return to pollution, ill-health and discontent among local residents.

The Tamil Nadu government’s 2018 closure order was two decades and many lives too late. Now, the government’s focus should be on prosecuting the company and ensuring that the factory site, groundwater and the contaminated dumpsites in various parts of Thoothukudi are restored to health at the polluter’s cost.

Nityanand Jayaraman is a Chennai-based writer and activist who has been active in the campaign against Vedanta’s pollution in Thoothukudi.

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