The Governments of India and Bangladesh plan to jointly set up a coal-based power plant within four kilometres of the eco-sensitive forest. It’s a certain recipe for disaster
Thousands of people, young and old, men and women, are now preparing for a 400km march from Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, to Digraj, a place in Rampal, in the Sundarbans, in the south-west of Bangladesh. The main demand for this ‘long march' that begins on September 24 is to stop a proposed coal-fired power plant in Rampal and stop all activities that would destroy the Sundarbans.
Besides being the world's single largest mangrove forests, Sundarbans is the only home to the critically-endangered Royal Bengal tigers. Now the mere existence of the Sundarbans — a Unesco World Heritage Site — has been threatened by an attempt to build a 1,320 MW coal-fired power plant at Rampal in Bagerhat district near the forest. This proposed plant is a joint-venture project by India's state-owned National Thermal Power Corporation and Bangladesh's Power Development Board. The NTPC and the PDB signed three major deals under Bangladesh-India Friendship Power Company, recently formed to deal with power trading between the two countries.
The proposed power plant now has no obstacle as the environment department of Bangladesh has approved its environment impact assessment report. But the country's environmentalists and civil society members have expressed their resentment over the approval, saying that it would destroy the Sundarbans as the project lies only four kilometres away from the environmentally-critical area.
The Bangladesh Environment lawyers' Association earlier this year put forward a set of its concerns to its Government which included, among others, selection of Rampal as the project site and the poor environmental track-record of NTPC. Against this backdrop, how an eco-sensitive site was otherwise selected remains a big question.
According to the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, locations of thermal power plants are not allowed within 25km of the outer periphery of any ecologically-sensitive area, forests or prime agriculture lands. Additionally, the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, of India, directs that any ecologically-sensitive areas like national parks, wildlife sanctuaries or reserve forests should not be possessed within 15km of a thermal power plant.
However, Bangladesh presently has no law or guideline which specifies minimum distance for a coal-based thermal power plant from reserve forests. Thus, the NTPC is flouting the rule of its own country. Once the power plant is set up, Rampal will be crowded by many industries and that would have an adverse impact on the sensitive ecology.
Bangladesh’s EIA report has tactically shown the region as ‘residential and rural areas' instead of ‘ecologically-critical area', to show that the emission is well under the allowable limit of Environment Conservation Rule, 1997, of Bangladesh. The emission standards set for ecologically-sensitive area is 30 µg/m3 both for sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide, which is much below the resultant concentration due to a coal power plant — 53.4 µg/m3, according to the EIA. The permissible limit for a residential and rural area is 80 µg/m3. So, if this standard of ecologically-sensitive area had been chosen in the EIA, the viability of a coal power plant would automatically be proved negative. That's why the EIA chose a safer and higher emission standard of ‘residential and rural area' to justify the power plant!
The experts point out that if the project works out, around 50,000 people would need to be evacuated from villages in the adjoining areas of Rampal. Environment and ecology experts have predicted that the power plant will release various harmful gaseous substances like carbon monoxide, oxides of nitrogen, sulphur dioxide, aldehydes, hydrocarbons and huge amount of fly-ash to the entire environment, seriously polluting water-bodies of the entire area. The impact will be start from the very beginning with the coal transport. According to the EIA report, 13,000 tonnes of coal will be required for this plant on daily basis. And this coal is planned to be imported through Passur river in Sundarbans. So pollution from the coal-loaded vessel, high beam of light and sound emission will be the cause of the initial severe impact on dolphin sanctuary, birds and aquatic diversity. As the Passur river is the main water source of the Sundarbans, therefore, adverse effect will spread throughout the whole forest through it. If oil spillages, noise and waste disposal rules are not properly maintained they will impact the ecosystem.
If, for example, the leaves of kewra trees are affected due to SO2, the effect will not remain confined just to kewra trees. Spotted deer of the Sundarbans eat kewra leaves, so the impact on kewra trees would spill over to the deer population via the food chain, which in turn would have resultant effect on the Royal Bengal tigers as well.
Generating adequate electricity through a large joint-venture project is certainly a priority for an energy-strapped country like Bangladesh. But it must not be implemented at the cost of destroying an eco-diversity forest. President Pranab Mukherjee, while visiting Bangladesh in March this year, urged that both India and Bangladesh should take the responsibility to protect the Sundarbans. Both Dhaka and New Delhi must heed the sagacious advice. let’s not forget: There are many options on power generation, but there is no option to the Sundarbans.