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After a long interval, trouble is again brewing at the Jaitapur nuclear power project.
Local villagers and anti-nuclear activists, who are opposing the project, have decided to launch a ‘jail bharo' agitation on January 24 and 25.
Villagers will march to the main project site and court arrest in their hundreds. There would also be a boycot on Republic Day celebrations. Children will not be sent to their schools for the parade. The Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) is in the process of setting up a 10,000-MW nuclear plant based on French technology at Jaitapur, in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra. The main plant is coming up at Madban plateau, close to Jaitapur.
After the Fukushima disaster in March 2011, anti-nuclear activist across the country have intensified their protest against NPCIL. The prolonged agitation and blockade against the Kudankulam plant still continues with no end in sight.
At Jaitapur, intermittent protests have been going on since 2007. The movement reached a crescendo in the summer of 2011, when a local fisherman was killed in police firing. After that incident the movement died down for a few months, and now it is again making a comeback.
Mr Pradeep Indulkar, anti-nuclear activist with Konkan Vinashkari Prakalpa Virodhi Committee, said that villagers from all the affected villages will congregate at Madban on January 24 and 25. Then they will march to the project site, demanding immediate suspension of the civil works, he said.
Ever since work commenced at the site, a large compound wall of over eight feet with barbed wires has come up on the site, which is blocking access to the plateau, a natural grazing land for the cattle. As a result 3,500 animals are not getting enough fodder, he said.
Mr Vijay Gavankar, a resident of Madban village, who has lost agriculture land to the project, said that the villagers are gearing up to protest against the plant, “But they still fear the police cases, which would be lodged against them,” he said.
Mr C.B. Jain, NPCIL's project director, said that the work at the site is going on unabated. Advanced negotiations with Areva, the French rector supplier, are also underway. “The protestors would be handled by the State administration,” he said.
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