The Visakhapatnam gas leak from an LG Polymers factory has resulted in the tragic death of 11 people, apart from affecting 5,000 other people who fell sick after the gas leak that is reported to have happened at around 3 AM on Thursday morning.
Now, it is being apprehended that the plant was operating without an Environmental clearance from the Union Ministry of Environment, and was functioning on the basis of a clearance from the APPCB since 2018, bringing the role of Andhra CM Jagan Reddy and his predecessor Chandrababu Naidu under the scanner.
According to the The New Indian Express, the company admittedly did not even apply for an EC from the Ministry as it was operating under petrochemicals-based processing that didn’t come under the Ministry’s purview. Rather, it sought permissions from the APPCB only.
A Ministry official said, “The company had applied for post-facto approval of its operation under expanded capacity. Since the clearance is pending, the operation of the plant is certainly a violation.”
According to Newsmeter, LG Polymers obtained clearance from the APPCB for expanding its capacity in January 2018, and the clearance is valid till December 2021. But on September 18, 2018 the State Level Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA), flagged concerns about its operations.
The SEIAA stated that LG Polymers’ “present manufacture of polystyrene and expandable polystyrene was in operation without a valid Environment Clearance (EC) and was observed to be a violation as per applicable statute in vogue.”
Nine months later, the company responded through an affidavit dated May 10, 2019 wherein it admitted not having taken prior EC citing the Environment Impact Assessment Notification, 2006.
LG Polymers claimed that the schedule of the above notification did not cover petrochemical-based processing (processes other than cracking and reformation).
The affidavit further stated that till date it did not have a valid EC, substantiating the produced quantity, from the competent authority. Thus, the plant kept operating with valid consent from the APPCB.
The NGT has also imposed an interim fine of Rs. 50 crores on LG Polymers over the leakage at its Visakhapatnam plant, and the Environment Ministry has also observed that the plant committed a violation of green norms as far as its expanded capacity is concerned according to a preliminary inquiry into the gas leakage incident.
The bigger question though that arises here is why the Chandrababu Naidu government didn’t take action against LG Polymers when the SEIAA had raised objections as early as September 2018.
Meanwhile, a retired IAS officer and former Finance Secretary EAS Sarma has made some startling revelations into the LG Polymers plant from where the gas leakage took place and the murky role of the Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board (APPCB).
In a letter written to Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Jagan Reddy, Sarma said, “LG Polymers is a South Korean company, constantly pampered by successive governments. It stands on government ceiling surplus land valuing hundreds of crores of rupees and the company had dragged the government into litigation, when the government tried to take back the land..”
He added, “Despite this, how did APPCB grant Consent for Establishment (CFE) and Consent for Operation (CFO) around the beginning of 2019 for the unit’s expansion? APPCB did not apparently take clearance either from the State government or from the Union Ministry of Environment.”
He further said that the LG Polymers factory being a highly polluting one and being located in vicinity of the residential areas, APPCB should not have allowed it to expand operations.
Coming down heavily on the State Pollution Control Board, Sarma stated, “This is not the first industrial accident to take place on the outskirts of Visakhapatnam. Around 30 to 40 accidents took place in the past resulting in several workers and civilians losing their lives, with no promoter prosecuted and no officer of the State govt punished,” and added that this implied collusion between the APPCB officials and the promoters of the polluting industries.
What is particularly disturbing is that according to Sarma, the APPCB wrongly granted CFE and CFO around the beginning of 2019, when Chandrababu Naidu would have been in power, and later the plant kept operating even after Jagan Reddy stormed to power in Andhra Pradesh.
While Naidu government made a mistake, Jagan Reddy government was callous enough not to correct it and eleven lives were thus lost in the process.
What seems rather murky is how APPCB allowed the firm to operate with expanded capacity allegedly without taking clearance from the state government or the concerned Union Ministry. It seems the two successive Chief Ministers remained indifferent to the gross violations that ended up exposing thousands to a tragic gas leakage incident.
