PARADIP: The testing times for the betel vine growers of Jagatsinghpur district are far from over. While super cyclone washed away the vineyards, some were demolished for the Posco project and now even as growers were rebuilding their lives by resuming betel vine farming in Kujang and Erasama blocks, toxic emissions by Paradip Refinery project of IOCL has damaged the plants in several areas.
Due to alleged chemical reaction from the gases released by the refinery, betel leaf in several villages have been party burnt and also developed black spots.
Betel vine farmer Abhimanyu Samal of Mahal under Kujang block said during winter, the betel leaves develop black spots but the chemical reaction has burnt the leaves. “The villagers are also feeling the effects of pollution like irritation in the eyes and breathing problems,” he added.
“The leaves are getting rotten within two to three days making it impossible for us to export,” Samal said.
The villagers of Dhinkia, Patana, Gobindpur, Trilochanpur, Nuagaon, Bhuiyanpal, Mahal, Gandikipur, Gopiakuda, Fethpur and Mangrajpur in the two blocks besides other areas had been exporting betel leaf to Benaras, Delhi, Mumbai, Gujarat, West Bengal and other States and earning a good income from the trade.
Meanwhile, contradicting the allegations, Senior Manager (Public Relations) of the company Manjushree Singh claimed that a mobile van has been deployed to monitor the ambient air pollution data in villages near the refinery.
During monitoring of air quality, it has been observed that Paradip Refinery has not put any additional pollution load on the environment. The major air pollutants SOX and NOX are well within the stipulated norms and no detrimental increase has been observed during construction or commissioning of the refinery, an internal inquiry of the company revealed.
The Particulate Matter (PM) level in the region was high even before construction of the refinery. There was no increase in PM level during the refinery commissioning period.
From the analysis of ambient air monitoring data during the last one year, it was found that the adverse effect on betel leaf has no relevance. Moreover, almost all the units are not operating since more than a fortnight, Singh further stated.
After receiving the allegations a team of Odisha State Pollution Control Board led by Deputy Environmental Engineer Pramod Kumar Behera visited the affected areas on Friday and collected samples for testing at Bhubaneswar, said a senior scientist Prasant Kumar Kar.