Last Updated: 17.07.24

In 1977, the Government of India and the state Government of Maharashtra announced their intention to build a massive chemical complex consisting of two large fertilizer plants, a huge petrochemical complex and a heavy water plant at Mandwa.

The fertilizer plants were a project of Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers (RCF), apublic sector undertakingunder the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers of the Government of India.

Mandwa is part of the extended Mumbai metropolitan region (MMR). Simply living near a chemical plant puts individuals at risk of contamination and disease. To locate a massive chemical complex so close to a densely populated mega city was a huge risk.

Meanwhile, the local population of Mandwa were seriously concerned about what the fertilizer plants and a petrochemical complex would do to their mangrove forests, which had already started to be destroyed. The fishermen and farmers of 14 villages in Alibag taluka came together to form an association named Chauda Gaon Paryavaran Suraksha Ani Janavikas Sanstha in 1977 to fight the proposal.

The Chauda Gaon association discussed the matter of the mangrove destruction with Ralli Jacob and his wife Perin, who had migrated across the Mumbai harbour to make pottery in the quiet village of Dhokavde in Alibag district. Ralli and Perin Jacob introduced the Chauda Gaon association to a group of activists in Mumbai, a meeting that resulted in the creation of BEAG in 1978and the start of its first campaign against the industrialization of Mumbai’s greenbelt. Ralli Jacob became one of BEAG’s founding members.

It was only after BEAG’s extensive representations to the central government that it agreed in 1978 to locate the fertilizer plants at Thal-Vaishet, and in 1981 to locate the petrochemical complex at Nagothane. The government also agreed to impose strict environmental controls on the fertilizer and petrochemical plants. While this did not entirely remove the threat to the coastal greenbelt and to the human population living along the coast and only 14 kilometres away in Mumbai, it was as far as the central government was willing to go.

A new problem cropped up. Although the fertilizer plants were to be located at Thal-Vaishet, RCF wanted to build a housing colony for plant employees within the Mandwa-Alibag greenbelt, which is considered agricultural land. In fact, RCF’s existing housing colony in the village of Kihim had already encroached on farmland and affected the environment. Allowing the urban settlement to continue to grow in the midst of farmland would not be prudent.
After nearly three years of ceaseless representation by BEAG, the central government agreed to build the main housing colony for RCF employees at Kurla-Veshvi, south of Alibag and well outside the Mandwa-Alibag greenbelt.

The Government of Maharashtra went a step further in protecting the environment of the coastal region. In its 1985 Regional Plan for the extended MMR, the state government designated a one-kilometer wide and 20-kilometer long coastal belt along Rewas-Mandwa-Alibag a Recreational Zone subject to strict environmental regulations.