Withdraw machinery if worried of financial risk: Tamil Nadu government to Sterlite
CHENNAI: The State government on Wednesday accused Sterlite of raising a false alarm on care and maintenance of its copper smelter unit in Thoothukudi and making ‘erroneous’ attempts to keep the plant ready to resume operation. If Sterlite was worried of financial risk, the government has advised the plant to withdraw its machinery.
The submission was made by Shambu Kallolikar, Principal Secretary, Department of Environment and Forest, in a detailed counter affidavit filed before a division bench of Madras HC, where the writ petition filed by Sterlite came up for hearing.
The bench, comprising Justice M Sathyanarayanan and Justice M Nirmal Kumar, adjourned the case to April 23 while refusing to grant any interim relief to Sterlite although its senior counsels C Aryama Sundaram and PS Raman vehemently argued that the unit was in dire strides and incurred heavy losses due to physical damage to the machinery in the absence of basic care and maintenance. Sterlite said, on an average the company spends around Rs 60 crore annually on maintenance and quadrennial turnaround shutdown activities for improving the asset care quality and safety/environment standards in the unit.
However, the government has dismissed the allegations. Kallolikar, who is also the Chairman of TNPCB told Express that the unit was in safe hands. The government affidavit says, currently, the Local Level Monitoring Committee headed by sub-collector of Thoothukudi, is taking care of the maintenance. The committee has been allowed to undertake certain works on priority, including removal of copper concentrate, neutralisation of residual acids, removal of furnace oil and light diesel oil, removal of rock phosphate, removal of copper sulphate electrolyte and care and maintenance of equipment etc.
Sandeep Nanduri, Thoothukudi Collector, told Express that since the unit is sealed for past one year, the machinery is bound to corrode. “We are not concerned about natural damages caused to the machinery. Our priority is to evacuate all hazardous chemicals and we are almost done. Most of the copper concentrate has been removed and removal of gypsum and other material is going on. We want to the factory to be permanently closed.”
Meanwhile, nine new groups have filed impleading petitions in the Sterlite case before the Madras HC. All seeking to reopen the factory. MDMK convener Vaiko also want to implead into the case. Meanwhile, the Sterlite counsel filed additional affidavits on Wednesday requesting the HC to dismiss the impleading petitions filed by activists Raja and Fathima.