In the absence of any solutions for the issue of water and air pollution caused by the Sentini BioProducts Private Limited in their village, locals of Gandepalli in Kanchikacherla mandal of NTR district have decided to boycott the ongoing elections, if the factory is not sealed.
The factory, set up in 2008, continued functioning as a distillery with a production capacity of 125-kilo litre per day (KLPD) until it received environmental clearance for setting up a separate ethanol plant of 200 KLPD in April 2023.
While the company prides itself on being a contributor to the Central government’s Ethanol Blended Petrol (EBP) programme, launched in the country in 2003 to reduce dependency on fossil fuel, the process of manufacturing ethanol has itself been detrimental for the village.
“We have been repeatedly writing to the officials regarding crop loss and dust, air and water pollution in the village,” said Sarpanch Bokka Ravi Kumar, who wrote a letter to the NTR district administration that they would boycott the elections if their demands are not met.
It may be noted that a 2022 Lokayukta enquiry revealed that the factory was polluting the irrigation canals and rivers and damaging nearby crops.
“Hundreds of lorries continue to pass through the village main road every day from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. We demand that the industrial traffic be diverted to another route. The factory has to take up development activities in the village as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility and pay compensation to farmers for damaging their crops on more than 70 acres. Illegal drawing of groundwater for its operational purposes should be stopped immediately,” Mr. Ravi Kumar wrote in the letter sent on May 6.
More than 70% of the village, with a population of 3,476 as per the 2011 Census, has extended support to the Sarpanch, said M. Muralidhar Reddy, a farmer who said that the villagers want the factory to be shut down for good. “The management has offered to take their agricultural fields on lease. We do not agree to it,” he said.
Responding to the development, Human Rights Forum (HRF) State secretary Gutta Rohith said that it is a testament to the government’s criminal apathy toward the villagers, who have been raising the issue democratically for the last 15 years. Thus, they are being forced to boycott the biggest democratic event of the country.
