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Right to pollute

Right to pollute The mandarins might hold forth ad nauseam about the freedom of information, as enshrined in the Right to Information (rti) Act, 2005. But, as Amar Naik, a 24-year-old law student in remote Costi village in Sanguem taluka of Goa, knows, information is hard to come by.

Harassed and intimidated by government officials for demanding information under the rti Act, Naik refuses to give up his fight against a steel factory called Aparant Steel & Iron for the past six years.

The villagers have been complaining against the air and water pollution caused by this factory for a while, but an official fight started in early 2005 when Naik and a few others wrote a letter to the state governor through the mamlatdar (revenue administration official), complaining against the pollution. They also raised objections against trucks running late into the night on narrow village roads, despite a no-entry sign.

For almost six months, Naik didn't receive an acknowledgement. He then wrote a letter to the Goa State Pollution Control Board (gspcb), with a copy to the mamlatdar , Vinayak Volvoikar, on October 5, 2005. gspcb conducted a survey and noted in a report dated November 8, 2005, that "trucks were plying every 2-3 minutes and some of them were not covered with tarpaulin and graphite particles were found deposited on the soil surface and bottom of the rivulet'.

It also noted the presence of the smell of burnt metal in the area and found that effluents from the factory were contaminating a natural stream. The report also said "fields were uncultivated and a nauseating smell of rotten egg/fish was prevalent

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