India: Locals Take on Giant Saudi-Backed Refinery in Maharashtra
“We don’t want this chemical refinery. We will not allow dirty oil from an Arab country to destroy our pristine environment,” says Manasi Bole. She is among thousands of people protesting plans to acquire an expansive laterite plateau – flanked by cliffside fishing villages, mango orchards and ancient petroglyphs – to build the world’s largest petrochemical refinery in western India’s ecologically fragile Konkan belt.
In late April, angry protests erupted in the Ratnagiri district of the western Indian state of Maharashtra when authorities began testing the soil for the mega project to be built by a consortium of Indian state-run oil majors and global giants Saudi Aramco and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC).
Thousands of villagers, led by women, braved the intense summer temperatures and lay on the roads to prevent officials from entering the site. Many others shaved their heads and went on a hunger strike to mark their dissent.
When talks with the villagers proved unsuccessful, police imposed a curfew on their movement and used batons and teargas to disperse the protesters. Women protesters and anti-refinery activists were detained, some for several days.
Across the region, there’s now simmering discontent over what villagers allege were “undemocratic and coercive” tactics by authorities to saddle them with a mammoth industrial project they’ve vehemently opposed for nearly a decade.
Across the villages we travelled to, there was anxiety about the refinery. “They say the plateau is a barren wasteland, but it’s a source of water for our springs, a place where we go to forage for berries, and grow vegetables” Ms Bole said.
Aboard his trawler boat, fisherman Imtiaz Bhatkar said he was worried about losing his livelihood every day because of the proposed refinery. “We won’t be allowed to fish in a 10km (6.2 miles) radius because the crude tankers will be moored at sea,” Mr Bhatkar said. “Nearly 30,000 to 40,000 people – local and from outside – depend on fishing in just this one village. What will they do?
Mango growers in the region – famed for the prized Alphonso mangoes – told us the slightest air pollution and deforestation would severely damage their yields given how sensitive the Alphonso variety is to the vagaries of wind and weather patterns.
Successive state governments in Maharashtra have been expedient in their stance on the refinery. They have supported it when in power and challenged it when in opposition. Initially planned as a $40bn (£31.6bn) venture, the size of the 60m-tonne-per-annum project has had to be cut by a third because of the long delays in getting it off the ground.
The project was first announced in 2015 to be built in Nanar village, a few kilometres away from the current site in Barsu village in Ratnagiri. The plans were scrapped after it met with stiff opposition from the residents of Nanar, its village council and environmental groups.
The state’s previous chief minister Uddhav Thackeray revived it last year, proposing Barsu as the new site. But out of power now, he has changed his view in support of the locals.
