Activists oppose power plant near Sundarbans

A diesel ferry cuts through the Poshur river -- the lifeline of the Sundarbans - with travellers watching its heavily industrialised bank, which is rapidly increasing at the cost of the world's largest contiguous mangrove forest, reports IANS on Sunday.

Activists are looking with a wary eye at the 1,320 MW coal-based power plant being set up by India's NTPC, mere 14 km north of the Sundarban Reserve Forests and four kilometres from the Ecologically Critical Area (ECA), which they say would pose a threat to the wildlife and dependent communities.

The Maitree Super Thermal Power Project at Rampal in Khulna division is being constructed in an area of over 1,832 acres on the eastern bank of the Poshur. In August 2010, a pact was signed between India and Bangladesh to set up the plant.

While journalists and protestors are not allowed near the project, a small group of visiting journalists from India could see for themselves the massive erosion, waterless canals, huge waterway traffic, oil spills and major infrastructure springing up along the river.

Some 10 km before the busy Mongla Port is a broad 5.5 km-long road west of the Mongla-Khulna highway that goes to the project site. Around this road there were some 5,000 families which were displaced, we are told.

Sushanto Das, one of the land owners in Bagerhat district, lost over 33 acres of land. "My house was burned down by the local goon with support of the local Member of Parliament. I approached the court. Now they don't even allow us to protest at the site," he told IANS from his residence in Ranjitpur, a town between Khulna and the Sunderbans.

At places, the river, along this special economic zone, has become much broader because of excessive erosion of its banks. Ferrymen say that because of this, the Poshur is becoming more aggressive. The western bank, where forest communities dwell and ECA begins, is also being industrialised.

A 2016 joint report by the governments of India and Bangladesh -- and supported by the World Bank -- on the status of tigers in the Sundarbans, a copy of which is with IANS, criticised this coal-fired project, saying it would further "exacerbate the problem" of climate change, pollution and tiger conservation. As per official count, the Sundarbans had 180 tigers in 2015. Now, those in the area are under threat.

The report, which labels vessels plying on the Poshur as "mobile bombs", reminds everyone of the December 2014 incident when 358,000 litres of oil were spilled into the Sela.

A wetland of global importance, the ecosystem saves the inlands from cyclones, stabilises sediments and makes the region a nursery of major fisheries, playing a key role in food security.