Sahith M.

Sharmila Joshi

Editor

large_01-10b-SM-A_food_park_that_could_heighten_hunger.jpg

medium_01-10b-SM-A_food_park_that_could_heighten_hunger.jpg

small_01-10b-SM-A_food_park_that_could_heighten_hunger.jpg

thumbnail_01-10b-SM-A_food_park_that_could_heighten_hunger.jpg

01-10b-SM-A_food_park_that_could_heighten_hunger.jpg

Areti
Vasu, 33, has 23 criminal cases filed against him. His mother A. Sathyavati, 55,
has eight on her head. In Tundurru, his village in Andhra Pradesh, Vasu
has been offered inducements, subjected to bullying, and put behind bars three
times. He has now spent a total of 67 days, so far, in jail since September
2016. His mother’s score: 45 days. 

“All
I did was file an RTI,” he says, simply. 

The
fallout of that action has not been simple. Police raids, intimidation, dragging
people out of their homes and placing them in preventive custody, are now
common in Tundurru. As also in the neighbouring villages of Jonnalagaruvu of Bhimavaram
mandal and
K. Bethapudi in Narasapur mandal. All three are in West Godavari district.

The
villagers here – mostly small farmers, fisherfolk and labourers – are protesting
the setting up of the Godavari Mega Aqua Food Park Pvt. Ltd (GMAFP).  They see this project as polluting both air
and water in the region and wrecking their livelihoods. The food park aims to
process products such as fish, prawn and crab for export to markets in the
European Union and USA. The ‘Committee for agitation against the GMAFP’ that
has sprung up here asserts that the process “involves using at least 1.5 lakh
litres of water daily.” They say it will “also discharge – every day – around
50,000 litres of water filled with pollutants.” The discharge will be released
into the Gonteru drain which empties out into the sea from this district.

A
government order of October 30, 2017, in fact says a pipeline will be built
that can  “dispose 3,00,000 litres / day
of treated water from the Effluent Treatment Plant of the GMAFP to the sea coast
at Chinagollapalem.” But there is no such pipeline or treatment plant in sight,
points out the agitation committee. Local media have also reported the
impending problem of large quantities of contaminated water going into the
Gonteru drain.

Work on the plan – on around 57 acres of privately
acquired land – began in 2015. It is due to go operational this year. The company’s ‘vision
statement’ says it “strives to make our
environmental carbon footprint as small as possible. We will utilize
alternative sources of energy such as wind, solar and hydro, to reduce our
dependence on traditional power.”

The
villagers dismiss that vision as a delusion. 
The conflict was sparked off by Areti Vasu’s RTI application (under the
Right to Information Act) seeking information on the project. Vasu runs a ‘Mee seva kendra’
(‘At your service’) centre in his village. This is an initiative by the state
to provide (outsourced and private) facilities such as bill payments and
applications for government services to the public.

When
Vasu was first carted off to jail, his mother began mobilising people against the
aqua food park. Sathyavati soon found her name added on in the “others” column
in the charge sheet against her son.

Police
insist they are merely maintaining law and order. But the FIRs (first
information reports) filed here, copies of which are with this reporter, record
extravagant charges.  “I’ve never had
anything to do with the police in 35 years,” says Sathyavati. “Yet, they framed
me in a total of nine cases.” Including attempt to murder. She wasn’t the only
one. Many villagers here are now forced to make the rounds of courts and police
stations, sometimes twice a week.

Besides
potentially devastating agriculture, says Barre Nagaraju, a leader of the fish
workers community in this region, the polluted water going into the Gonteru
drain will devastate 18 fishing dependent villages nearby. “This factory will
impact around 40,000 of us,” he says. 

Indiscriminate
pumping of groundwater and other diversions to projects have already caused a
crisis. In the past few years, villagers in the water abundant Godavari delta
have come to depend on large plastic cans for drinking water. The sale of such
cans is now a booming business. People fear the GMAFP will worsen this
situation.

Koya
Mahesh, an agricultural labourer from Jonnalagaruvu
village next to the aqua food park, says, “The factory will destroy the fertile
lands in the village and hit the livelihoods of farm labourers.” Residents of
his village, most of whom are Dalits, have been fighting the project. It will,
they complain, contaminate the Gonteru drain, the one major freshwater lake they
have. Also, the foul smell from the factory could make the village unliveable.

More
than 20 people in Jonnalagaruvu’s Dalit hamlet, which has just 70 households, have
been booked under multiple cases. Mahesh faces nine, including an attempt to
murder case. He was jailed for 53 days and later again for six days. His wife
Keerthana found herself booked after she attended a meeting against the aqua
park. “Threats and intimidation have become normal,” she says.  During one protest on International Women&#39;s Day
in Vijayawada, she recalls, a “pregnant woman was thrown into a police van like
a sack of vegetables.” 

Age buys you no exemptions here. Children at a kabaddi match, held every year
in the village, were also hauled off to the police station for staging the
event without prior permission. In previous years, the match went on  without any problems, but after the villagers
have  participated in the protests, this
has changed.

The GMAFP did not respond to this reporter’s email seeking its version of the happenings here. However, the executive director of the park, Ananda Varma, has gone on record to say there was really no basis for misgivings over the project and there will be zero discharge. The water and all the effluents will be treated and recycled (The Hindu BusinessLine, October 17, 2016). Chief
Minister Chandrababu Naidu has championed the project. “Some people are trying
to stop the aqua food park. There is no loss because of this factory,” he said
at a public meeting in Elluru on February 25, 2016. “The pollutants and
remnants discharged by it will be filtered and diverted to the sea through a
pipeline. The factory will be built at the same spot.”   The aqua park first gained sanction when the Congress party was ruling in Andhra Pradesh. But the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) has followed up on it aggressively after coming to power in 2014. Cases against more than 300 villagers have been registered in the past two years. The spokesperson of the TDP, YVB Rajendra Prasad, insists the mega aqua food park is “pollution-free.”

But
the locals face a different reality.  And
their discontent stays on the boil.  “Before
the factory came here,” says Samudrala Venkateshwar Rao, a farmer in nearby K.
Bethapudi village, “I never went to a police station.” Rao now has 17 cases
against him, including attempt to murder and criminal conspiracy charges. It
began with him sitting in a protest on the road. “Later that night I was picked
up by the police and jailed for 53 days.”  

Samudra
Sathyavati, another resident of the same village, says, “Earlier, most women
here only came out of their homes to apply muggu [decorative
white or coloured patterns] on the floor. But today we are hitting the roads
and going to jail. Why are thousands being disadvantaged over one factory?”  Others here, after four years of peaceful
protest, ask: “Is it fair that we are dragged, beaten and detained at night
because machinery for the factory is coming in the next day? We will not let this
plant start even if we lose our lives.”

And
in K. Bethapudi, J. Sathyanarayana wonders why the government supports a
private factory vehemently opposed by the people. “Even today, not a single
brick can be laid at the factory without police protection,” he points out.

A ‘food park’ that could heighten hunger

ਇੱਕ ਪਾਰਕ ਜੋ ਭੁੱਖਿਆ ਮਾਰ ਸਕਦੀ ਹੈ

ఆకలినీ ఆందోళననూ తీవ్రతరం చేసే ‘ఫుడ్ పార్క్’

വിശപ്പ്‌ വർദ്ധിപ്പിച്ചേക്കാവുന്ന 'ഫുഡ്‌ പാർക്ക്‌'

பட்டினியை உயர்த்தும் ‘உணவுப் பூங்கா’

ଏକ ‘ଫୁଡ୍ ପାର୍କ’ ଯାହା କ୍ଷୁଧା ବଢାଇପାରେ

মানুষের মুখের গ্রাস কেড়ে নেওয়া ‘ফুড পার্ক’

लोकांना भुकेकंगाल करणारं ‘अन्न प्रक्रिया केंद्र’

रोटी छीनने वाला ‘फूड पार्क’

روٹی چھیننے والا ’فوڈ پارک‘

West Godavari

At present, we can only accept donations in Indian rupees by Indian citizens. All donations made to the CounterMedia Trust are eligible for exemption under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act, 1961. Here is a copy of our exemption certificate.


India is bigger than New Delhi. And people need to know more about the rest of this vast nation.


Younger, media-saturated generations are growing up knowing little about their country, but a lot about the elites of a few metros and towns. For a narrowly-owned, commercially-driven media, the dumbing down of a nation is part of standard operating procedure. The last available data of the Centre for Media Studies (CMS, Delhi) show us that reports from New Delhi account for 66 per cent of news on the front pages of major dailies. The CMS data also found that just about 0.24 per cent of front page news came out of rural India. The TV channels are not much better.PARI exists to change that.We are a non-profit organisation. We publish under creative commons, and do not charge readers a subscription fee or put-up advertisements. Nothing is behind a paywall and we are completely free-to-access by anyone. We guard our independence and receive no direct grants from governments and corporations, nor any funding that could dictate our content. So, we are dependent on volunteer labour, donations from individuals, foundations and institutions that see value in independent and free media.PARI is changing the way Indian journalism reports and documents the rural.India is more than the elite of a few metros and towns. We report on rural lives and livelihoods, languages, communities, migrants and more. We need your help to pull off this most ambitious of Indian journalistic endeavours. The scale of this effort costs money. Donate generously - and spread the word about PARI.&nbsp;

Donate FAQs


Let’s get you acquainted

Welcome to PARI

All our content is, and will forever be free to consume. If you enjoy our work, you can support us by becoming a volunteer or by donating to help fund our work.

Want to republish this article? Please write to <a href="mailto:zahra@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">zahra@ruralindiaonline.org</a> with a cc to <a href="mailto:namita@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">namita@ruralindiaonline.org</a>

A ‘food park’ that could heighten hunger

People in Andhra Pradesh’s West Godavari district, battling the proposed dumping of 50,000 litres of polluted water from a mega aqua food park into the Gonteru drain every day, find they are fighting the state as well

Related stories

A rain-scented walk in Sivagangai

Living on ravaged land

Biswas and the bamboos on his bike

Recycling energy, Godda style

Bhadels of Goa

Pookadai: still throbbing with morning life

Koli Kadlas

Malnourishment high among children of migrants: study

Wheels of the rural Indian West

Living Under a Red Cloud in Bellary

Vedla – earrings of the Maher community

Dreaming of water, drowning in debt

Kali: the dancer and his dreams

Farmer's diet worse than a convict's

In Yavatmal, life goes on

Suicides are about the living, not the dead

Death of a carpenter

Hoisa Shigmo!

Women farmers: weaving a life in Anantapur

Defiant in Dhinkia

Spice and all that's nice

Kerala's Green Army

The ‘jugaad’ not-a-mobile

Health as someone else's wealth

Calibrating in a Kudumbashree assembly unit