HYDERABAD: Post cyclone Hudhud, the pitch of protest against the proposed Kovvada Nuclear Power Plant project, barely 68 km away from Visakhapatnam, has increased manifold. In fact, environmentalists have dashed off series of letters to Prime Minister Narendra Modi cautioning him about the adverse impact of the nuke facility __ both on the environment and local population __ and calling for a thorough "tectonic study" of the area, prior to taking any further decision on the project.

Located in Srikakulam, the site of this prospective 10,000 MW power plant, expected to be spread over 2,000 acres (approx), took a major knock during the recent cyclone leaving the local fisherfolk struggling to bounce back. But while experts dread to imagine just what the scale of devastation would have been had the plant already been set up in this area, officials of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL), executing the plan, seem to find no reason to fret. Speaking to TOI, G V Ramesh, chief project engineer (Kovvada), said: "Cyclone Hudhud was only a minor calamity. The plant has been designed to withstand much bigger occurances including tsunamis and earthquakes." He confirmed that land acquisition for the power plant is already underway, irrespective of Hudhud's impact.

Environmentalists, therefore, are an extremely worried lot. "Land acquisition has been initiated and pursued ignoring ground realities, public safety and the stiff opposition; and even before the mandatory project site clearance of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) is obtained," stated Capt J Rama Rao, in his letter to the Prime Minister dated November 11. Quoting from findings of the Site Selection Committee (SSC), appointed in 2005 precisely for the purpose of analyzing if the proposed area was suitable for a nuclear power plant, Rao further argued how the SSC too highlighted that the area was susceptible to cyclonic storms. "Also Pune-based seismologist, Arun Bapat, warned that the site identified at Kovvada is unsuitable from the safety angle," Rao, who has been fighting against the project since its inception, wrote in the letter.

He found support in former secretary to government of India, E A S Sarma, who lashed out at the department of atomic energy (DAE), in his letter to Modi and pointed out how the "DAE has not complied with the recommendations of SSC __ of conducting a tectonic study up to 300 km surrounding the project site to understand the seismicity of the region", which, incidentally, was constituted by DAE. Citing a 2007 report tabled by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which stated that "future tropical cyclones will become more intense with larger peak wind speeds," Sarma appealed to the PM to review the safety of the proposed project, "considering the vulnerability of the location to Hudhud-like high velocity cyclones". The wind speed during Hudhud touched 230 km per hour.

As for the locals, environmentalists stressed that the roughly 2,000 families set to be displaced to make way for the project __ it'll be spread over the four villages of Pedda Kovvada, Chinna Kovvada, Ramachandrapuram, Tekkali and Gudem __ would be faced with irreparable damage in case the government ignores the safety aspects."I do not see any reason for concern, considering that we have already identified a safe area for setting up a rehabilitation and resettlement colony for these people," retorted Ramesh, reiterating how such calamities, like Hudhud, are "normal occurrences."

