By Paras Ramoutar, IANS
Port-of-Spain : The new $1.7 billion steel plant to be set up in Trinidad and Tobago by India’s Essar group continues to be the target of several environmental activists, who want the project to be halted.
Local residents want the plant to be relocated so that the peace and tranquillity of the area is not disturbed.
As one passes daily through the usually quiet and peaceful community in Pranz Gardens, Claxton Bay, Central Trinidad, there are signs saying, ‘save our fishes, save our planet’ and ‘Essar destruction must stop’.
Residents who live in the area are mainly Indo-Trinidadians, descendants of indentured labourers who came to work in the sugar plantations in this country over a hundred years ago.
They have sought the intervention of the Trinidad and Tobago Civil Rights’ Association led by former Attorney General, Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj.
According to University of the West Indies lecturer Wayne Kublalsingh, more than 7,000 families would be adversely affected if the steel mill was built.
Peter Vine, physicist, noted that Essar Steel would bring serious levels of air pollution to the people, and called on citizens to fight against environmental devastation.
The work of digging a foundation for the new steel plant was disrupted last month following an alleged case of arson.
Since work began three months ago, a billboard has been set afire and two vehicles used for construction work, valued at $350,000, were damaged by vandals.
The Essar Steel Caribbean Complex consists of an oxide pellet plant with a capacity of 4.5 million tonnes a year which was supposed to be completed by the year end at a cost of $440 million.
This phase would also see the commissioning of one hot briquette iron plant with a capacity of 1.5 million tonnes a year, and a captive power plant of 55 megawatts.
The second phase – to be commissioned by mid-2009 – will involve another hot briquette iron plant with a capacity of 1.5 million tonnes a year, a steel-making and slab-caster plant with a capacity of 1.4 million tonnes a year and, a captive power plant of 165 megawatts at a cost of $380 million.
The third phase, to be completed by 2010, would involve one hot strip mill to produce hot, rolled coils with a capacity of 1.3 million tonnes per annum at an investment of $300 million. By 2010, when the entire project is completed, the expected turnover would be over $800 million, providing 1,400 direct jobs and indirect employment to 6,000 people.
So far, the government has remained quiet on all the protests.
Essar Steel Caribbean had signed an agreement in December 2005 to set up the two million-tonne iron and steel plant in Trinidad and Tobago. The company is a subsidiary of Essar Global, which in turn, is a closely held company of India’s Ruia family.