RATNAGIRI: Sitting at a sharbat stall in Sagave Katradevi, Majid Bhatkar points to the vacant lot where Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray held a rally two days earlier, on April 23. The village in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra ’s Konkan region is close to Nanar, the proposed site of a large refinery and petrochemicals complex, which has become a political hot potato.In his speech, Thackeray hectored the Shiv Sena’s ally in the ruling coalition in the state, the Bharatiya Janata Party, against proceeding with the project. “We won’t allow the government to acquire even an inch of land,” he reportedly said. Three days later, he called for the refinery to be shifted from the coastal district to the inland Vidarbha region in the state.The project requires 14,000 acres of land in 14 villages of Ratnagiri and 1,000 acres in two villages of Sindhudurg, the neighbouring district. “Even where we are sitting will be gone,” says Bhatkar, a mango farmer and owner of two fishing boats. He adds that 80% of the land is used for agriculture and that over 16 lakh mango trees and three lakh cashew trees, the mainstay of the region, will be lost. (The district is known for its Alphonso mangoes.)Bhatkar notes that unlike the farmers, the affected fishermen will not get land acquisition compensation. The land is proposed to be acquired under the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) Act, 1961. According to locals, 22,000 farmers and 4,500 fisherfolk will be impacted.Land acquisition has hobbled many a large project in India, including Tata Motors’ Nano plant in Singur in West Bengal and South Korean steelmaker Posco’s project in Jagatsinghpur in Odisha.While there has been some local opposition to the Ratnagiri project since the state government issued a notification for land acquisition in May 2017, it is only in the last couple of weeks that it has become a full-blown political issue. Saudi Aramco, an oil behemoth, on April 11 became a partner in the Rs 3 trillion project, which had been initiated by a joint venture between three state-owned companies, the Indian Oil Corporation Hindustan Petroleum Corporation and Bharat Petroleum Corporation. Saudi Aramco and another potential investor will hold 50%, IOC will own 25% and HPCL and BPCL 12.5% each.Saudi Aramco, along with another strategic foreign partner, will hold 50% in Ratnagiri Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (RRPCL) and the Indian companies the rest. The refinery will process 1.2 million barrels of crude per day, or 60 million tonnes per annum (mtpa), as much as the two refineries at Reliance Industries’ Jamnagar complex, the largest in the world. The Ratnagiri project will also have a capacity to produce 18 mtpa of petrochemicals products.Since the Saudi Aramco announcement, besides the Shiv Sena, opposition parties like the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party have attempted to capitalise on the issue. “Everyone is opposing the project but we don’t know if they mean it or just doing it for politics. But we have some hope in the Shiv Sena,” says Bhatkar.Since the land is yet to be acquired, it is business as usual where the project is set to come up, with farmers busy with the mango harvest season. There is not much happening except a widening of the road. When contacted, Saudi Aramco, which will also supply some of the refinery’s crude requirements, declined to comment.The Shiv Sena is the dominant party in the region, winning five out of the eight assembly constituencies in the two districts and the one Parliamentary seat in 2014.The Shiv Sena has been at loggerheads with the BJP, worried about the latter’s growing footprint in Maharashtra. The parties fought the 2014 assembly polls separately, in which the BJP won nearly twice as many seats as the Shiv Sena, but came together to form the government. The Shiv Sena has frequently attacked the BJP and has sworn to fight the 2019 polls on its own and its opposition to the refinery has to be seen in that context.But the party’s Vinayak Raut, the MP from Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg, disputes that. “This is not an election issue, this is about the villagers’ existence.” The party has come in for criticism in its opposition to the project now and not when the land acquisition notification was issued, since the industry minister Subhash Desai is one of its own. “The notification was only to find out if the people are going to accept it,” says Raut.At the rally in Sagave Katradevi, Desai said the notification had been cancelled, a claim contradicted by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who said he would take a decision which was in the larger interest of the Konkan region and the state. “The CM is ready to talk to the locals and understand all their legitimate objections,” says Madhav Bhandari, a spokesperson for the BJP.He adds that the Shiv Sena has lost the confidence of the people. “The Shiv Sena’s role in this has been dubious. Both the BJP and the Shiv Sena are trying to fool the people,” adds Ashok Chavan, a former Chief Minister and president of the state unit of the Congress. While Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena and Narayan Rane’s Maharashtra Swabhiman Paksha are also opposed to it, the Nationalist Congress Party will make its stand clear after its chief Sharad Pawar visits Nanar on May 10. MNS workers vandalised an RRPCL office in Mumbai earlier this month.Uddhav Thackeray’s suggestion that the project be moved to Vidarbha may not be as economically feasible as having the project on the coast. Out of India’s 23 refineries, 11 are on the coast, as are three-fourths of their total capacity of nearly 248 mtpa, mostly on the western coast, given India’s dependence on imported crude, primarily from the Middle East.If fossil fuels continue to be India’s predominant energy source, India’s per capita primary energy demand will more than double from 0.58 million tonnes of oil equivalent (mtoe) in 2015 to 1.31 mtoe in 2040, with oil being the most important fuel after coal. To meet the country’s growing energy needs and exports, India’s refining capacity will have to increase roughly 2.7 times to 667 mtpa by 2040. This is why the Ratnagiri refinery is crucial.B Ashok, chief executive of RRPCL, says that since there are limitations to expanding existing capacities and imports of petrol and diesel could prove expensive, greenfield refineries are essential. “This is a very important national project and not just a business proposition.” He adds that the project, along with the industries that supply to it and use its products, will add at least 10% to the state’s economic output and 1.5-2% to the national output. RRPCL says 1.5 lakh people will be employed during the construction of the project and 20,000 direct jobs will be created once it is completed.But Bhatkar is not convinced: “We don’t need jobs. We have enough work on our farms.”Ashok, a former chairman of IOC, says concerns over the project’s environmental and health impact are unfounded. “The Indian promoters (of the project) are all highly credible and established oil companies who have been serving the country’s energy needs for a long time.” But there are those like ecologist Madhav Gadgil who advocate restraint in promoting polluting industries in the Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg region. In 2010-2011 Gadgil headed a panel set up by the Union environment ministry to study the ecology of the Western Ghats, which cover the eastern parts of Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg, and recommend conservation measures.“This entire region (Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg) has been seriously impacted, both environmentally and socially by a number of mining, power projects, and polluting industries,” said the committee’s report, referring to projects like Lote MIDC, which houses chemical plants, in Ratnagiri district. The report noted that Lote MIDC had polluted the Dabhol creek and affected fishing. “There is likely to be absolutely no justification for a potentially polluting project,” says Gadgil.Some critics of the project, like Raut, also raise an alarm over the proximity of the refinery to the Jaitapur nuclear power project, 15 km away. But Ashok says there are no safety concerns. The Jaitapur project, dating back to 2009, has also been plagued by controversy and construction is yet to begin.Nitin Birmal, a political analyst, believes the BJP government will maintain status quo on the project till the polls next year (the national and state elections will be held months apart, if not concurrently). Ashok Walam, who heads a local movement against the project, says while the support of the Shiv Sena and opposition parties puts pressure on the BJP, the protests will continue even without the parties’ backing.There is a lot at stake here for the Union government, which is the majority owner of the three Indian companies in the venture and which is also ruled by a BJP-led coalition, given the size of the project. The success of the project is also crucial for India’s reputation among foreign investors, whom PM Narendra Modi has been wooing.It is a no-brainer that the project’s impact on livelihoods and the environment has to be carefully examined. However, the government’s response to the opponents of the refinery has to be calibrated in light of its implications for energy security and job creation.