A public interest litigation petition has been filed in the Madras High Court seeking to restrain the authorities from operating the Madras Atomic Power Station (MAPS) (Units I and II), Kalpakkam, in Kancheepuram district, without obtaining environmental clearance.
The petitioner, M.Vetri Selvan, an advocate here, said that in response to an RTI query in May this year, the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) made it clear that all the recommendations of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India NPCIL committee/task force and the high-level AERB committee constituted in the wake of the Fukushima disaster in Japan had not been implemented so far with regard to MAPS. The board had also said a detailed study into the presence of a volcano near MAPS was in progress. It had also said that no environmental clearance with regard to storage of spent fuel in the power station had been obtained. The petitioner alleged that without any environmental clearance, MAPS units I and II were functioning for nearly three decades.
The authorities’ failure to make a fresh environment impact assessment and obtain clearance would be a violation of the Constitution.
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The MAPS-1 and II went critical in 1983 and 1985 respectively. Presently, the power station produced 440 MW from the two units. An estimated 30,000 workers lived in the five villages within a five-km radius from the power station. There was a DAE township which accommodated permanent workers and their families.
Within a radius of 16 to 20 km, there were about 60 villages where more than one lakh people lived.
Since the plant operations began in the early 1980s, incidents of cancer and auto-immune thyroid diseases in the surrounding villages had increased, the petitioner said.
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When the petition came up before the First Bench comprising the Acting Chief Justice R.K.Agrawal and Justice M.Sathyanarayanan, the Additional Solicitor-General, P.Wilson, took notice.
The matter has been posted for October 8.