Pollution not an externality vedanta

Pollution not an externality vedanta

It is extremely unfortunate that a dozen people have been killed and many more injured over a polluting copper factory in southern Tamil Nadu’s Thoothukudi. It reflects failure of policy, failure of policing, failure of politics and corporate disregard for the environment and laws that regulate the impact of human action on nature. Payment of compensation to the victims of police violence will not make up for such failure.

Copper smelting creates pollution, as do many industries. This means that active measures must be taken to collect, treat and dispose of the pollutants in a fashion that does not harm the water, air or earth around the factory or the people who live there, not that society can do without those industries. There was a time when an industrial unit could consider pollution to be an externality, something it created but was not responsible for. Environmental, specifically, pollution control regulation seeks to internalise the cost of pollution. No enterprise should try to avoid or reduce this cost by compromising on mitigation and abatement. It is failure on this count that has allowed popular opposition to build up against the Sterlite copper plant in Thoothukudi. It is evident that people have little faith in either the company’s promise to contain pollution or the government’s ability to enforce pollution control. The cost of breaching public trust is high.

It is strange that some non-government organisations had to lead the protests. A responsible political party would have protested against the pollution rather than against the factory, which produces vital jobs and income, besides pollution. Vedanta, which owns Sterlite, should sack the present management, bring in a new team, invest in pollution control, engage the public and salvage its reputation and the plant.