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Farmers in India resolute against Bhavnagar nuclear power plant

Gujarat: Farmers oppose nuclear power plant in Bhavnagar, West: India Today, D. P. Bhattachary  | Mithi Virdi Village (Bhavnagar), May 30, 2011  A storm of resistance is brewing in the mango orchards of coastal Bhavnagar district.

As the Union government proposes to set up a 6,000 Mw nuclear plant at Mithi Virdi village, farmers from the five villages of Jaspara, Mithi Virdi, Khadarpar, Mandva and Sosiya have come together to pledge that they would die rather than give their fertile farmland for the power plant…….

Political activists cutting across party lines have come out in support of the villagers.

“They are saying nuclear energy is clean and would come cheap,” said Sanat Mehta, former finance minister of Gujarat. “If it is so clean and cheap, why don’t they take the plant to Delhi or Gandhinagar?” he told the meeting.

Gordhan Zadaphia, former minister of state for home affairs, Kanu Kalsaria, the new face of the farmer’s movement in Gujarat, as well as nonagenarian Gandhian Chunibhai Vaidya are also a part of the movement.

The farmers have so far thwarted every effort to acquire land. “They had come to test the soil. But we unanimously rejected their request at the gramsabha,” said Shaktisinh Gohil, the sarpanch of Jaspara.

“People from the Nuclear Power Corporation Ltd had also come to measure the land about a year ago. But fearing a law and order situation after we resisted, they went back,” he added….

Gujarat: Farmers oppose nuclear power plant in Bhavnagar : West: India Today

May 31, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | India, opposition to nuclear