It
is no more the Picasso imagery of a wounded horse by a poisoned river
refusing to drink as in his Guernica. The mighty river Chaliyar, which
regained its pristine glory, is quite flowing westward through the
terrains of Mavoor and Vazhakkad, no more polluted by the pulp factory
of Grasim Gwalior Rayons. Gone are the days when people lived on both
sides of the river had fallen victims of cancer and respiratory
ailments. As far as the locals are concerned, the swelling fish wealth
of the river is a clear indication of its recovery from a 40-year-long
spell of toxic effluent discharge. The river which once turned black and
tar-like has already regained its crystal clear waters.
Now it is about a decade since the polluting factory was closed down by
the Aditya Birla Group following immense public outcry. Local people and
environmentalists do not remember any mass fish mortality in recent
years though it was common till the winding up of the factory. Though
the closure of Grasim factory had rendered about 2,000 workers jobless,
the villages are now happy as they regained their traditional access to
the river. Fishing is now a profitable business and that makes several
employees of the former factory happy. Cattle population is increasing
as there is no dearth of water for washing and drinking. Health
expenditure of the locals has also started witnessing a drastic fall as
no more presence of toxic wastes. People can swim and bath freely in the
river without the fear of exposure to chemicals. The rebirth of the
river has a flip side as well – indiscriminate sand mining.
"It is not just that several of our favorite fish varieties are back,
even they taste better than what it used to be during the toxic days,''
claims Babu Varghese, one of the leaders of the agitation against the
pulp factory. Babu was among the few who started the Save Chaliyar
Campaign decades ago in a modest way. Leaders of the campaign are now a
happier lot as their local brethren, who once disassociated with them in
the name of industrialization and job creation, started experiencing the
benefits of a toxic free life. With the closing down of both the pulp
and fiber divisions, there is no effluent discharge into the river and
no release of toxic fumes into the air. So Mavoor is now unpolluted,
healthy and water surplus.
"The factory had eaten about 90 per cent of the bamboo wealth of near by
Wayanad district by paying nominal price to the government and throwing
its fragile ecology out of gear had caused illness ranging from
respiratory diseases to skin rashes and cancer to the people lived close
to the river. There were high incidence of chronic bronchitis,
pneumonia, asthma and skin diseases in the area at the height of the
Save Chaliyar Campaign,'' recalls C Surendranath, a leading journalist
who risked his profession to lead the campaign.
"The Chaliyar struggle was unique in many respects. It won ultimately on
a giant industrial group which was least concerned of the human beings
and environment. It had ultimately given rebirth to a dying river. It
was in fact a coming together of humans to save their lifeline,'' opines
noted environmentalist Sugathakumari. Interestingly, mainstream
political parties including CPM, Congress and BJP along with their trade
union wings had tried their maximum to weaken the public protest and to
promote the Birla venture.
K A Rahman, president of Vazhayoor Village Panchayat, was the rallying
point of the agitators since the beginning. Working relentlessly for the
Chaliyar, Rahman finally succumbed to cancer gifted by the emissions
from the factory but said, even while dying, that his people would
continue the struggle. Ultimately, his people won over the might of
pr-industry lobby. Rahman's name can be seen in the cancer death
register that he himself introduced three years before his death. Though
incomplete, the register itself remain a symbol of the determination of
Rahman to fight the mighty. As per the entries in the register, 213
people died of cancer in Vazhakkad village aloneafter facing the brunt
of the mercury and cadmium discharged into the river. Another 79 died in
the nearby areas.
"There was not enough fresh air to breath; nostrils reeked of mercury.
Diseases devoured their victims at a frightening pace. Malformation of
babies had multiplied. Cancer, heart attacks, respiratory diseases,
failing vision and retardation of mental faculties were quite common
here,'' recalled Abdurahman, who operates a country boat in the river
linking Mavoor and Vazhakkad.
Vazhakkad was in a fact a small village with 30,000 populations. Among
them 60 people were found to have cardio-pulminary afflictions when the
factory was operational. As many as 176 had tuberculosis, 134 had
chronic asthma and 134 had lethal ulcers and another 650 had kidney and
vision troubles.
"There was an immediate drop in bronchial diseases among children within
the two years after the factory closed down. The number of people
affected with various diseases is getting narrowing down by each passing
year. New cases of severe diseases are very few and far between now,''
pointed out Dr P K Dinesh, a local physician.
But the situation was very severe in the past. A 1981 study by medical
experts revealed that 23 per cent men and 21 per cent women in the
village had respiratory ailments and 14 and seven per cent respectively
had chronic bronchitis.
Though the area is now free from the pungent smell of sulphides, aged
victims of the Grasim factory are still languishing in the region
without any compensation. According to M P Abdulla, one among the
sufferers of the pollution caused by the factory, no comprehensive study
was done on the impact of the pollution on the local population. But
even Abdulla remains happy as the closure of the killer factory saved
his children and grand children from the clutches of chronic diseases.
Way back in 1963, came Aditya Birla Group's Gwalior Rayons to Mavoor as
it was then called, the biggest private venture in the state, igniting
hopes and stoking dreams of jobs and industries and development for the
residents of Mavoor. In the state government's efforts to bring in
industries, sops of various kinds were offered to the factory. The first
casualty of it was the river Chaliyar. The company was given free hand
to take maximum water from the river for industrial purpose and to empty
the wastes into the same river.
What was also destroyed along with the advent of the factory was the
forest wealth of Wayanad. A hill station close to Mysore and Ootty, the
deforestation changed Wayanad's climatically condition severely. Now
there is no salubrious climate in Wayanad. It is estimated that since
1963 to 1974, bamboo and other forest wood was given by the State
Government to the factory at a subsidized rate of Rs 1 per tonne.
According to studies, it is estimated that the subsidies alone were
worth Rs 3,000 crore on this count. Power was given to the company at 40
paise per unit and no charge was levied on the water taken by the
company from the river.
"For the company, all these meant profit worth millions. But for the
poor people of Mavoor and Wayanad, this had been a means to unquantified
ecological devastation and massive loss of natural resources; a means to
floral, faunal and human calamity. Everybody is happy of the closure of
the factory but no one is asking the industrial firm to compensate for
the poison the factory spewed into the river, the toxic fumes it belched
into the atmosphere and the heavy metal sludge it dumped on the earth's
surface,'' points out Surendranath.
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It
is no more the Picasso imagery of a wounded horse by a poisoned river
refusing to drink as in his Guernica. The mighty river Chaliyar, which
regained its pristine glory, is quite flowing westward through the
terrains of Mavoor and Vazhakkad, no more polluted by the pulp factory
of Grasim Gwalior Rayons. Gone are the days when people lived on both
sides of the river had fallen victims of cancer and respiratory
ailments. As far as the locals are concerned, the swelling fish wealth
of the river is a clear indication of its recovery from a 40-year-long
spell of toxic effluent discharge. The river which once turned black and
tar-like has already regained its crystal clear waters.