A British-owned copper smelting plant in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu that has been blamed for unnaturally high cancer rates in surrounding villages has closed, days after 13 people were killed by police during protests against the facility.

The Tamil Nadu chief minister, Edappadi K Palaniswami, has ordered environmental authorities to “seal the unit and close the plant permanently”, after a 22-year campaign by environmentalists and residents against the site, owned by London-based Vedanta Resources.



Monday’s decision sparked celebrations in villages around the Sterlite copper plant, including in Kumarareddyapuram, where residents have complained for years of breathing and skin problems and cancer symptoms.

“We won, we finally won,” one tearful villager, Latha, told the Guardian. Her neighbour Ponsudha said: “I can drink the water, farm the soil without any worry and ensure that future generations of our families will not have health problems to worry about.”

A spokesman for Vedanta said the allegations were unfounded and the company strictly complied with its environmental obligations.



The protests had grown in intensity in the past three months after Vedanta’s subsidiary, Sterlite Copper, applied for approval to double the capacity of the plant.

More than two decades of protests against the facility had attracted little national attention until last week when police opened fire on protesters whom they accused of setting cars alight, pelting stones and breaching the fences of government buildings.

Footage of a police officer scaling a bus to shoot demonstrators and other videos showing families crying over dead relatives were aired on Indian television and widely shared on social media.

The images fuelled outrage across India and internationally, including from members of the UK Labour party, who called for Vedanta to be delisted from the London stock exchange.

Following the closure announcement on Monday, residents and activists gathered at the facility to watch authorities formally seal the gates, clapping and whistling as an official used a candle to apply a red seal to the lock. “You lost, we won,” one villager shouted.

“I am exhilarated, I am flying,” said Fatima Babu, a leader in the campaign against the plant, minutes after learning of the state government’s decision. She said the victory was a tribute to those who died last week fighting the expansion of the plant.

“The martyrs have done it. We have set an example to the rest of the country of how we can drive out corporates who are here in the name of development, but minting money at the expense of our lives and livelihoods,” she said. “We have written history.”

Political pressure over the police killings appears to have been the driving force in the closure of the plant, the precise environmental impact of which remains unclear.

A 2008 study into the health effects of the plant, which surveyed more than 80,000 residents, found the iron level in nearby groundwater was up to 20 times higher than acceptable limits. There were also higher-than-expected incidences of asthma and other respiratory conditions.

The state had repeatedly shut down the plant due to pollution complaints and Vedanta was fined £10m in 2013 for breaching environmental standards and operating without the consent of environmental authorities.



One resident, Nisha Valdaras, said she knew of at least three people who had died of cancer before they turned 18. “When you go to the doctor, the first thing they ask is: are you from Tuticorin?” she said.

Jayshree Vencatasan, a scientist and managing trustee at the Care Earth Trust, a conservation group, said Tamil Nadu lacked the technical capacity to properly monitor the impact of heavy industry. That meant neither the claims of villagers, nor the denials of Vedanta, could be properly scrutinised, she said.

“Tuticorin is a hub of many hazardous industries,” she said. “Obviously something is wrong in the area. [But] to establish a linear relationship that Sterlite is responsible will not withstand scientific scrutiny until a long-term study is done.”

She welcomed the victory of the local campaign against the plant, but cautioned: “This is not how these issues should be handled. If it was causing problems for the local people, this should have come to light long ago. It should not have followed the death of 13 people. We need a better process.”

Vedanta said it was considering its next course of action. “[The] closure of the Sterlite Copper plant is an unfortunate development, especially since we have operated the plant for over 22 years in [a] most transparent and sustainable way, contributing to the Tuticorin and the state’s socio-economic development,” a spokesman said.