Nayachar Island

India / Bangla / Haldia /
Nayachar is an island in the Hooghly River, off Haldia in Purba Medinipur in the Indian state of West Bengal. The island inhabited by few fishermen.
"Nayachar has emerged as the most logical option for a major chemical hub as the land belongs to the state government and the area being largely uninhabited. It will neither entail land acquisition nor require population displacement.
The chemical hub would be set up as a joint venture project of West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation Ltd and New Kolkata International Development. Indian Oil Corporation would be the anchor investor there. The NKID comprises three companies including the Salim Group of Indonesia.
However, Nayachar comes under the coastal regulation zone where industries are not permitted under the existing environment rules.....On 15 February,2008 West Bengal Government handed over 54 km² of land at Nayachar to PCR Chemicals Pvt Ltd for conducting a feasibility study in order to set up chemicals hub in the region. PCR Chemicals is a 90:10 joint venture between New Kolkata International Development Pvt Ltd (NKID) and the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation Ltd (WBIDC). NKID is a special purpose vehicle, which has the Salim Group of Indonesia, the Universal Success Group and Unitech, as its partners. The chemicals hub is proposed to be set up under the ambit of the Petroleum, Chemicals & Petrochemicals Investment Region (PCPIR) scheme of the Central Government"
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayachar
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   21°58'12"N   88°5'45"E

Comments

  • Think about other people... do you have any guess about how much chemical will be thrown away in BAY OF BENGAL? Its extremely dangerous to the environment. In India, we don,t have any rules regarding wasting of used chemicals. The company will take its profit by misuse of law. Anyway, do anyone ever tried to think why chemical hub is coming to India(Nayachar), because Malayasia Govt. does not allow so much chemical waste(mainly Sulphur and PHOSPHATES------ do anyone have any idea how they function toward human and environment) without proper procedure(that includes few million US$). Think...
  • I am an electrical engineer working in an industry. So I get to meet a lot of other engineers regarding our work. One of my friends is a chemical engineer and has been to various countries. From him I came to know that a chemical hub was set up in Brazil, where hundreds of people have started to suffer from various types of infections, many of them have lost their eyes and the children being born bring with them some disability or the other be it mental or physical. Many of them have deformed body parts and their life has become pathetic. Trust me, I am no Trinamul or any anti-CPM person, but a true Bengali at heart who loves his state. Any person who has ever been outside WB will know that how much we Bengalis are hated throughout India just because we had dominated the national scene for quite some period in the past. We are constantly being referred as Bangali Mada***** by those hooligans Please can't we keep our egos and come forward for the welfare of people of our state. We can have other industries to do away with the "bekar somosya" but please leave out the chemical hub.
  • Purba Medinipur District has been declared a ‘multirisk hazard district’ for storms, floods and earthquakes (earthquake intensity VII zone) the coastal populace here bears the actual brunt of storms. During Nor’westers, the wind speed rises above 100 Km/hour and is usually accompanied by storm surges. When the cyclonic incidences coincide with the spring-tides, wave height can rise over 5m above the mean sea level. The coastal stretch of the area between Low Tide Zone and High Tide Zone and within 500m of the landward side of High Tide Level has been declared ecologically sensitive. It is earmarked along with the adjacent Sundarbans and Nijkasba for reserve forests, wildlife habitats and mangroves of Coastal Regulatory Zone (CRZ)-1 under the Coastal Zone Management Plan for West Bengal by Environment Department, Govt. of West Bengal, 1998. Regulatory measures suggested by (CRZ)-1 include control of dredging activities, discharge of burnt oil, leakage of oil due to bad maintenance of vessels, limiting setback lines for coastal construction etc. It is also emphasised that “Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) study should be made mandatory for any large coastal project” here and that “the ecologically sensitive area should be demarcated, as “no-industry zone and no exemption should be allowed.” History tells us that Hijli and Khejuri just west of Nayachar were thriveing ports for short periods being obliterated obliterated a number of times since the Mughal times when they came into being. The British finally gaveup in 1864 after two third of the population were washed away by cyclones. According to Goldar (PTI 1999, Nov 21) “If any severe cyclonic storm hit the West Bengal coast it would cause more devastation than the Orissa super-cyclone with any possible storm surge ranging between 8.5 to 12.5 metres as against the 2.5 to 9.5 metre surge recorded in Orissa”. Nayachar is more over situated within the Hugli/Bhagirathi/Ganga estuary. Any idea what pollution could do to the fish (marin life) in the estuary and upstream. How about the living organisms of Kolkata where the tidal water moves in along the khals and nalas. Kolkata would truly become the international garbage dump. The plans to stabilise and enlarge the area to build upon would block the outflow of the Ganges and cause overflow upstream and also the reactivation of palaeochannels (dead river courses)that have been built upon. Dredging the narrow channel would cause the river banks (Nandigram and Khejuri) to be eroded. In 2002 the population density of Purba Medinipur constituting the western bank of the river was 867 per sq km.
  • Several comments seem to have been removed intentionally using some registered users with negative points to hide the environmental issue due to Chemical Hub which the citizens have the right to discuss. They have not used any bad words. and this is why I posted the core issue of the environmental problems from the pages of Wikipedia in the description (The deletion of the description will show which registered user has deleted. Insted of deleting the comments the so called persons could have posted in support of the Chemical Hub justifying their stand. It is stange to notice over 50 registered users have been employed to mark a negative points on the comments!
  • I have restored some of the comments
This article was last modified 9 years ago