Tamil Nadu   

PIL petition against titanium dioxide project

MADURAI: A public interest litigation petition has been filed before the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court, seeking to restrain the Government from going ahead with the Rs.2,500-crore titanium dioxide project, proposed to be set up by Tata Steel in Tirunelveli and Tuticorin districts, without conducting an environmental impact assessment.

A Division Bench, comprising Justice Prafulla Kumar Misra and Justice P. R. Shivakumar, on Tuesday ordered notice to the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, the State Government, project director of Tata Iron and Steel Company and the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board. The judges said the notices, returnable by four weeks, would indicate that the case shall be disposed of at the admission stage itself.

A farmers’ association, ‘Kuttam, Theri and Tharisu Nila Membattu Vivasaya Sangam’ of Tirunelveli, filed the writ petition claiming that environmental impact assessment was mandatory for the project to be implemented across 16,000 acres of which about 3,000 acres lay on the sea shore. The association said rutile and ilmenite were two major titanium mineral ores of commercial value found in beach sand and rock deposits. The content of titanium dioxide in these ores varied between 45 to 60 per cent, depending on the source. Rutile had 95 per cent of the mineral, while ilmenite was mostly used as a whitener in industrial paints, sun screens, cosmetics, toothpaste and so on.

A study of titanium dioxide at Sierra Leone in West Africa had showed that mineral extraction caused deforestation, relocation of villages, chemical pollution and radioactivity. Besides, an article published by the National Geographic Society showed that titanium dioxide was produced by a chlorine process that released hazardous carcinogenic dioxins into the atmosphere.

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