New Delhi/Patna, 3/2/2011: Addressing a press conference at Indian Women’s Press Corps, Bihar Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar said, “We have not given permission to the asbestos factory.
This factory has received the environmental clearance from the Government of India and thereafter from the State Pollution Control Board. But we have not permitted its establishment. We have not given any permission. As of now asbestos is not a prohibited thing. There should be uniform process and asbestos factory should be stopped all over the country.†He was responding to questions about the bitter protest of villagers including women in Marwan Block of Muzaffarpur who have been braving police repression since May 2010. The photograph of protest against police firing against anti-asbestos protesters is attached.
The fact is that mining of all form of asbestos is prohibited in our country. But the trade, manufacturing and use of the killer fibers of asbestos is not banned as of now although World Health Organisation (WHO) and International Labour Organisation (ILO) have passed resolutions calling for the elimination of future use of asbestos. The Chief Minister must put the public health and lives of citizens of Bihar more important than the blind profit mongers of asbestos companies like Balmukund Cement & Roofing Ltd in order to take decisions which are consistent with WHO and ILO resolutions.
As to the role of the Bihar’s State Investment Promotion Board (SIPB), it is quite stark. SIPB gave approval to Kolkata based M/S Balmukund Cement & Roofings Ltd’s proposal for establishment of 1.5 Lakh MT capacity production unit of Asbestos Fiber Cement Sheet (Corrugated/Flat) and Accessories at Chainpur-Bishunpur, Marwan, Muzaffarpur on 21st December, 2009. However, it is noteworthy that approval date of CM/Cabinet is not available in public domain. The list of proposals approved by SIPB which mentions the approval to Balmukund Company’s factory is attached.
According to WHO estimates, more than 107 000 people die each year from asbestos-related diseases. With Resolution 60.26, the World Health Assembly requested WHO to carry out a global campaign for the elimination of asbestos-related diseases “…bearing in mind a differentiated approach to regulating its various forms – in line with the relevant international legal instruments and the latest evidence for effective interventions…â€
A study titled “Asbestos exposure and ovarian fiber burden” by Debra S. Heller MD, Ronald E. Gordon PhD, Carolyn Westhoff MD, Susan Gerber MD – American Journal of Industrial Medicine Volume 29, Issue 5, pages 435-439 observes “Epidemiologic studies suggest increased risk of epithelial ovarian cancer in female asbestos workers and increased risk of malignancy in general in household contacts of asbestos workers. Ovaries were studied from 13 women with household contact with men with documented asbestos exposure and from 17 women undergoing incidental oophorectomy. Ovarian tissue was examined by analytic electron microscopy. Significant asbestos fiber burdens were detected in 9 out of 13 women with household asbestos exposure (69.2%), and in 6 out of 17 women who gave no exposure history (35%). Three exposed women had asbestos counts over 1 million fibers per gram wet weight (23%), but only 1/17 women without an exposure history had a count that high (6%). This study demonstrates that asbestos can reach the ovary. Although the number of subjects is small, asbestos appears to be present in ovarian tissue more frequently and in higher amounts in women with a documentable exposure history.” The WHO’s Factsheet too mentions that ovarian cancer is caused by asbestos fibers of all kind.
The plant site
The ruling parties in the State Government which claim the legacy of Jayaprakash Narayan must take note of the findings of the Shah Commission – set up to investigate the Emergency’s excesses- noted that during Emergency (1975-77), Navin Chawla (former Election Commissioner) wanted to construct Tihar jail cells with asbestos roofs wherein opposition leaders who were arrested under Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) were to be kept. “A proposal to this effect was also processed but given up eventually due to certain technical reasons.” Shah Commission was a commission of inquiry appointed by Government of India in 1977 headed by Justice J.C. Shah submitted its report in August 1978 to the Parliament.
BANI urges Bihar government to initiate the process of banning asbestos fiber from the state in order to pave the way for the eventual national ban on asbestos of all kinds.
Asbestos use has been banned in most of the industrialized world since it has been proven that exposure to asbestos may lead to incurable mesothelioma, lung cancer, and numerous other illnesses.
For Details: Gopal Krishna, Convener, Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI)/Asbestos Mukti Andolan, Web:Â banasbestosindia.blogspot.com
This is a big dilemma that Bihar government has given clearance of asbestos plant manufacturing unit set up at muzaffarpur in Chainpur village which is populated and with fertile land. At least government could have checked all the norms of manufacturing asbestos plant unit in Chainpur. People are health concious and feared of havoc and disease caused by asbestos dust with causes lung cancer and mesothelioma. Government should immediately release the protestors Mr Tarkeshwar Giri and Kumud Ram who are protesting for society goodness and for noble cause. Salute for them who are fighting with daring efforts. I hope the socialist Medha Patekar should visit the site and intensify there effort and also request centre for immediate Ban of Asbestos plant set up in India….Ravindra Giri
Dear RavindraÂ
This is really the strange whenever state is going on the way of development hat time people like u is coming in picture to stop the development, but whenever state was going to hell that time no one come to protect, this time industries is the need for Bihar, so whatever step is taken by the state government is we should support, once we stand with our own lag we can try to stop such kind of production unit which can be create problem, also in the world many of country is having such kind of production unit,Â
One more question to you due to whine many people is affected by many kind of  problem but where the government is stop it, Â
So, Requesting you kind of people that please support to growing bihar not to stop development,Â
I have got tired of writing to so many about the tale of my sorrows inflicted by non than the various officers of the Department of Agriculture ,Bihar. My story is the one which has been narrated to even the chief-minister through his grievance cell atleast ten times in a span of one year.But no hearing has been paid till date.
I want to ask the CM that if no rescue can be provided ,can we be allowed to shift to other business destinations in India .For this we require the CM again to intervene in the matter and in one straight line he should ask the learned ,talented,sincere,hard-working department people to give us in writing that we are not required or the factory that we have built out of our toil of thirty years and equal pain has been put in building our brand image is of no use and we should shut down . Instead they have in order to save themselves are hatching one ploy or the other for escaping from the ultimate justice when they will be asked to explain their dubious conduct in handling our matter .They have shown the highest degree of inclemency and a total disregard to the laid down clauses of FCO1985 for one and the only reason of satisfying their insatiable greed for money and ego. The person concerned is one Sanjay Singh ,who for the first time was pampered by one Sri B.Rajendra IAS when this man was Director of Agriculture ,Bihar. Later on he fell in to the laps of Sri A.K. Sinha IAS presently ,Agriculture Production Commissioner ,Bihar who has inflicted untold miseries to our enterprise by using the various tactics of not doing anything directly but getting it done through others in the department using his strength of power a senior IAS wields .After all he is also a contender of assuming the status of chief-secretary ,Bihar.This Sanjay Singh got Mr. B. rajendra sign one impractical and inhuman at the same time an unsustainable order by preventing us from buying any fertilizer from open market as raw-material for our NPK mixture unit ,that too when there is a total absence of raw-material allocation from government side ,even when we are licensed producers of NPK mixtures , that too ,by the state government itself . We had no option than to approach the court of law ,High Court , and we got releif as the HC held the order of the Director to be wholly unsustainable,unlawful,and not supported by any legal authourity. However ,this process took almost a time of more than six months .Our one wholeselling fertilizer firm was penalised for supplying fertilizers to our mixture unit .The name of the firm is Shiwnarayan Chiranjilal situated at Forbesganj itself. The dimension of damage can be imagined in the way the firm was made to repent for such supply (the supplies were made in the wake of this HC order and various notifications of GOI in the matter) ,this person got Mr. B. rajendra send letters under his signature to the District Agriculture Officer for launching FIR against this firm and at the same time ordered for cancellation of the selling license . In May 2009 FIR was instituted in the local P.S. and we had to run from place to place to avoid arrest. Later on we were enlarged on bail on the ground that no offence is made out by the firm, in the wake of HC order and various notification of Government of India on the subject of availing subsidised material for mixture making .But all these notifications and letters ,although received by the Directoarte never found their way to the related files and were kept in abeyance to hide the prevailing statutes and to mislead the Controller of Fertilizers at the state level and thus the Director of Agriculture who is controller of Fertilizers also .Enough damage was done till then
.Fact of facts is that ,at that time Sri K.C. saha IAS was APC ,Bihar, who had made an order to restore the licence of M/S Shiwnarayan Chiranjilal and also directed the Director of Agriculture to allow some quantity of district allocation of fertilizers to the mixture units for NPK mixture manufacturing.Surprisingly this man Sanjay has yet till date has not got any order passed in the light of this order to the respective District Agriculture Officer, even after a lapse of more than 18 months(for sanjay Sri K.C. saha was not APC as was Mrs. Pudda and using his laisoning tactics he gor Mrs. Pudda punished by the then Chief Secretary ,Bihar Mr. Pillai for no reason ) .Again this order ,becuase was an enabling order has been kept by him in some personal almirah with the sole aim of preventing ,the smooth running of the mixture units in the state and to satisfy his ego and greed of money .This year he got the last nail embedded in the coffin of the already dead industry by ,a tactics of misinterpreting the various sections of FCO and getting the Director of agriculture again act inhumanly and without lawful considerations ,reject the renewal of licenses of these units in the state,whereas ,served the interest of similar nature unit of outside the state to market their product in Bihar at the cost of (A) employment generation of the state (B)industrialisation of the state (C) quality tracking (as these units are having their outfit beyond the jurisdiction of our state and hence cannot be ever penalised if the material supplied by them is found sub-standard ,save and except the fact that their marketing rights will be withdrawn, the time it will take will already make them multimillionaires and at the same time this erring officer will also have his coffers full ,the punishment will only be that for some time they will not be selling their product,but t at the cost of the fate of the farmers of the state).(D)revenue generation of our state .You can just imagine how a junior officer like Sanjay can play with the fate of farmers,traders,labourers and still make merry in the laps of the seniors in the depaertment.
The present situation is we are closed since 18.12.2010 .100-150 labourers are work-less and are on the verge of death due to unemployment(b)lacs of worth of fertilizers have been washed out due to untimely rain and hurricane in our area(c)damage of unlimited extent has been made to the roofs of the factory building as the roofs have been blown in one recent tempest (d) lacs of worth of machines have become oxidised and non-workable (e)farmers were getting completely balanced fertilizers and were happy with the quality we manufactured ,there is not a single case of unsatisfied farmer who used our product, they are forced to switch over to the use of substandard fertilizers and the manufacturers who have been allowed to operate cannot be caught ……..We have been charged by the directorate for violating clause 12 & 7 of FCO 1985 which is totally misconceived in law as these sections are applicable to new comers in this line (ours is a thirty year old factory).Another story of antipathy and high handed ness of this Sanjay is that we had gone in appeal against the order of rejection of renewal of the licence to the Office of the APC.Bihar .Order of rejection is dated 23.07.2010. Appeal wa made on 30.7.2010 .Time after time was given in the appeal filed by us to the APC .And finally for the fourth date when it was fixed the date was 29.09.2010 .But Sri A.K. Sinha (the APC)went on leave on 23.09.2010 .However, the work of the APC was made to be looked after by again Sri K.C. Saha during the period of Mr. A.K. Sinha’s leave and finally on 29.09.2010 appeal was heard and favourable order was passed .It was stated in this order that the Director will get the petioner’s laboratory re-inspected on the intimation of the petioner for having procured all the lacking equipments ,and after being satisfied of sufficiency according to clause 21 A of FCO 1985 of the petioner’s laboratory ,the Director will renew their licence.This order was dated 30.09.2010. But this Sanjay as he is, was again playing a game . The order for inspection of the laboratory was issued after 22 days of the order of APC i.e. on 22nd of October2010. The inspecting team took another 31 days after this order i.e. the inspection was carried out on 23.11.2010.This means a total of 53 days were taken from the order of APC to the date on which the inspection was carried out and the said report of sufficiency was submitted to the Directorate on 25.11.2010. Now the game starts again.This report was hidden by Sanjay and after 23 days of the submission of complinace of section 21 A by the petioner , no renewal was done but one FIR was launched against us on 18.12.2010 and our factory was sealed(i.e. after 73 days of the enabling order of APC Sri K.C. Saha).
One another factory at Forbesganj was also sealed and FIR was launched on them also in the same misinterpretation of the sections of FCO 1985 at the behest of this Sanjay. This FIR and sealing was done on 12.12.2010. The name of the concern is M/s Bihar Agro Industries ,Forbesganj .However, on 7.01.2011 their license was renewed and aplology was also asked for by this Sanjay from High Court for having made delay in comliance of the order of High Court , which had earlier set aside the order of the Director and APC (this time in their appeal Sri A.K. Sinha heard their appeal and in place of giving any relief had sided with the Order of the Director who had rejected renewal of their license under very similar grounds) holding it to be an act of contempt of Court.Our case still remains unsettled but the direction of the High Court in our matter was always acted by the department in rejecting our renewal time and again .Three times the court made an order of considering our renewal application that too, in the light of similar order of the court, but this sanjay got it rejected all the three times , as a result we are again in appeal in the court . Most amazing aspect of the entire scenario is that in our case appeal was heard by APC,but by Sri K.C. Saha who accepted our appeal and gave direction to act to the Director,who has not acted lawfully but launched FIR and sealed the factory,in their case the order of the APC and Director was setside and inspite of this they were also acted against by having to face the burden of FIR and sealing of the factory .But the fear of contempt of court brought them knees down and the deaprtment had no option than to renew the license in their case and at the same time unqualified apology was also asked for by non else than this Sanjay Amazing it is , in the sense ,that both the cases are exactly similar in nature and in both the cases the directorate acted in vehement disregard to established principles of renewal of manufaturing license as laid down in FCO 1985.You can just see the discrimination and vehement misuse of ones discretion .
The missing part is being narrated.Bihar agro was charged for having available equipments in their laboratory which had become junk and unusable, whereas we were chrarged for having insufficient lab equipments but at the same time about us there is one previous report that we had laboratory equipemts and chemicals sufficient to carry out limited quality analysis tests with accuracy . For these small lapses a plant worth 3 crores was shut down forcibly by these bankrupt by mind officers grossly against the principles of economic growth of the state . Our CM is not listeninginspite of the fact , as I have said earlier, we have posted him with these facts so many times . Is this good governance. Minister Narendra Singh also misled the Bihar Legislative Council on one occassion when on this matter a voice was raised by one of the members in the house and chose to side with the rring officials of his department .Mr. Nitishji should also care for the misuse of hard fetched money in purchase of DHAINCHA seeds by this department where crores of rupees have gone to corrupt persons’ pockets in this department. Other facts about this will be revealed in subsequent posts .Adieu … your GOOD GOVERNANCE Sir, Nitish Kumar ji .
Don’t goof around ,but do something whatever you like but never think of making any investment in Bihar ,you will repent later on . Or otherwise one advice is there if at all you cannot do without Bihar . Try to earn a freinship with Narendra Singh but beware ! he is a lion by caste ,if something nice also you say, he may bite you,nay , he will eat you up . So remain cautious .Open a factory ,may be only on papers ,manufacturing micro-nutients , just pack ferrous sulphate ,label it as Zinc Sulphate ,pay Rs. 10 -20 per kg to the mafia in agriculture department , your net profit will still be Rs. 10 a kg .Because Ferrous Sulphate is priced only at Rs. 5 a kg and Zinc Sulphate ,the price given by the mighty department of Agriculture ,Bihar is Rs. 40-45 a kg. So learn these tips .I am blaring, may be ,Narendra has not given me a chance ,or I could not earn his freindship .If I also am rewarded a chance , I may stop making noise like this .But my dear, this is what is happening in the name of agriculture development in Bihar. I forgot to tell you one important point .The point is Ferrous sulphate and Zinc sulphate ,they look alike . So Don’t worry . Your payment of Rs. 10-20 a kg will make up for all your lapses . Your supplies will never be tested for its content or nature of content .Baidyanath Yadav has been again given the charge of Director,Mithapur Laboratory , minister will tell him and your ferrous sulphate will test as 33% zinc sulphate mono hydrate .