The cement company has been in violation of the mandated measures to reduce air pollution at its limestone project in Gujarat. Now the environment ministry wants to cut it some slack.
In late June last year, amid COVID-19 restrictions, residents of 10 villages in Gujarat’s Bhavnagar district gathered on a village road. The road was used by trucks carrying limestone from a captive mine belonging to UltraTech Cement, an Aditya Birla Group company and India’s largest cement manufacturer. For years, the villagers had suffered air pollution caused by the dust raised by the trucks, which travelled to UltraTech’s cement plant in Amreli district 90 km away. They decided to not let the trucks pass until the state government issued an order stopping the trucks from plying through their villages.
They were …
Meenakshi is an independent researcher based in Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh. Her bylines have appeared in The Third Pole, Article 14, Mongabay-India and Caravan, among others. Her interests include the environment, land and agrarian policies.
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