Meta-Strips, a company promoted by the Jindals and their associates to extract copper and copper alloy strips from imported scrap, is being opposed by the locals backed by the powerful Catholic Church and the opposition Bhartiya Janata Party. The location of the plant on farmland at Sancoale has aroused fears that pollution would affect agriculture and deprive the local community of scarce water and power.

The alterations made in the project plans in 1996 when the plant was conceived as Nashik Wires Ltd through its present avataar

as Meta-Strips Ltd in 1997 has also not intensified suspicion against the company. Though the plant's annual output of copper and copper alloys was reduced to 30,000 tonnes from 47,280 tonnes, the manufacture of copper strips and briquettes instead of the originallyproposed wires has become a bone of contention with the environmentalists.

The company however justified the change in its raw material on the grounds that it was necessitated by technological requirements. `When we first consider a particular type of machinery we don't get all the details about the raw materials required...the final picture is available only when everything is finalised," says Sushil Khaitan, chairman of Meta-Strips.

In presentations made to the local press and citizens' groups, the company insisted that its processes were pollution free. ``We are using pure copper in our furnaces. The smelting process which is actually polluting is not required by us,'' insists Khaitan. The Environment Impact Assessment reported conducted by Societe General de Surveillance (SGS) also gives a clean chit to the project.

Incidentally, international trade in discarded PVC-coated telephone wires, the plant's main raw material, is due to be banned under the Basel convention, according to environmentalists.``Even though PVC will be stripped from the wires some residue will remain on the copper cable which will release dangerous toxins when burnt,'' says Claude Alvares, director, Goa Foundation. The toxins are known to cause severe health problems like adverse effect on human sexuality, Alvares said.

The Meta-Strips plant will also be a big consumer of water in an area where irrigation is poor. The revised project was to consume 4 MLD (million litres daily) of water from 0.6 million MLD. Following protests from the people, the company revised its water requirements to two MLD of water. However, last June the state government's Public Works Department submitted an affidavit before the Panaji bench of the Mumbai High Court stating that the government would not be able to meet the plant's water requirements.

Khaitan, however, remains unfazed by the problem. ``We will hire tankers to bring in water,'' he told The Indian Express. This however translates to between 150 to 200 tankers per day depending onthe vehicles' carrying capacity. With the economics of the tanker business not permitting the transport of water for more than 10 to 15 kms, it is feared that the suppliers will tap wells in the villages nearby. The company is negotiating with the government to lay a special pipeline to its plant from the Selaulim reservoir nearby, Khaitan said.

However, the company has begun to surreptitiously drill borewells within its premises. Enquiries by this newspaper revealed that a few borewells have already been dug without the permission of the local panchayat. This has resulted in springs in Consua village nearby drying up totally. With the water supply from the Selaulim reservoir breaking down frequently, the villagers rely on the natural springs.

Incidentally, the Meta-Strips plant was shifted from the Verna industrial estate to its present location following opposition from the pharmaceutical companies there. After trying to push through the project for the whole of 1996, the state government acquired2,41,965 square metres of land at Sancoale and leased it to Meta-Strips at a mere Rs 74,000 per year.

Consequently, the Anti-Meta Strips Citizens Action Committee (AMCAC) which is spearheading the agitation against the plant has accused Chief Minister Luizinho Faleiro of ulterior motives in clearing the project. The industry ministry which oversaw the revised project was then headed by Faleiro. He has now instituted a judicial enquiry headed by Justice G Sindkar (retd) to look into the project though construction activities have not been stayed.

The agitation against the project received a boost in August when the Catholic Church publicly opposed the project. ``We can't be silent spectators when environmental pollution on such a largescale is being carried out,'' Father Maverick Fernandes of the Cortalim church told a news conference recently. He and another priest were among the villagers who were caned by the police in the magistrate's court at Vasco da Gama for allegedly disrupting theproceedings.

Chief Minister Faleiro even charged Brahmin Catholic priests of carrying out a propaganda against fellow Christians from the backward castes. With the saffron Bharatiya Janata Party openly aligning with the Catholic Church on the issue, members of the minority community voted in large numbers to help elect its candidates from both seats in the last Lok Sabha elections. ``All of us voted en masse

for the BJP," says Joel Fernandes of AMCAC.

Taking a cue from Faleiro, Meta-Strips is attempting a campaign against the Catholic Church. ``This is the right time for the Pope and the government to rise to the occasion and curb these nefarious, communal and illegal acts by mischievous people....," the advertisement released by the Jindals said.

Another anonymous advertisement went thus: ``Please save industrial development in Goa from the atrocities of Christians who are bent upon deindustrialisation with ulterior motives.'' However national newspapers who were approached by the companyhave refused to publish these advertisements.