Farmers urge Chandrababu Naidu to stop construction of ethanol factory in village

Farmers and activists seek Chief Minister's intervention to halt construction of an ethanol factory near a village in Krishna district.

Farmers from Arugolanu, a village in Bapulapadu mandal in Krishna district, and human rights activists met Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Saturday (January 11), seeking his intervention to stop the construction of an ethanol factory in the village.

M. Venkata Ratnam and K. Raghava Rao, who represented the farmers, and G. Rohith from the Human Rights Forum (HRF) met Mr. Chandrababu Naidu at the TDP central office in Mangalagiri to draw his attention to the issue.

In a petition, they explained that the factory, coming up on 15 acres and having a production capacity of 200 kilo litre per day (KLPD), is located close to their fields and just about 200 metres from the Veeravalli Channel 1 of the Eluru Canal.

As per the Environment Clearance (EC), dated November 2, 2022, the factory is permitted to draw 800 KLPD from the canal for its everyday requirements. The farmers and activists, however, pointed out that the canal, which gets water from the Prakasam Barrage, has lean flows for 3-4 months a year.

Moreover, the canal does not have any flow in the months of March, May and June, said the farmers, quoting from information they received about flows in Veeravalli Channel through a Right to Information (RTI) Act application. Given the situation, “how can the factory meet its daily requirements of 800 KL[P]D?” they asked in the petition.

Data about the allocation of water (in tmcft) made for irrigation and non-irrigation purposes, including drinking and industrial needs, from the Veeravalli Channel shows that in 2019-2020, 0.43 tmcft was set aside for irrigation and 0.01 tmcft for both drinking and industrial purposes.

The factory may require anywhere between 4 and 8 litre of water for every 1 litre of ethanol. Given its production capacity per day, which is 2,00,000 litres of ethanol, the total water requirement per day would touch 16,00,000 litres, which would be around 0.02602 tmcft. The factory did not mention these points in the environmental clearance, the petitioners said.