BOTTOMLINE: EVEN AS A PANEL DEBATES BAN ON ASBESTOS, STATES ARE USING IT IN WATER PROJECTS

Greens wait verdict to choke off silent killer

Sunil Mukhopadhyay

The environment ministry is now under pressure from two powerful lobbies — environmentalists and asbestos makers. The environmentalists believe that asbestos is a “silent killer” and should be banned, while the asbestos makers argue that it is a cheap material, ideal for use in developing countries.

Interestingly, citing lack of funds, West Bengal and some other state governments are using asbestos cement pipes liberally in water supply projects. Asbestos attracts only 8 per cent government duty, while steel attracts 15 per cent.

Environmentalists such as the Kolkata based non-governmental organisation, Kalyaneshwari, point out that the World Bank has stopped giving loans for projects in which asbestos cement material is used. It has petitioned the state’s human rights commission to ban the use of asbestos cement pipes in drinking water projects.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has recommended that asbestos is bad even when used as roofing material for schools.
The Union environment ministry set up a 12-member committee headed by joint secretary S Rajagopalan in August this year to find out whether asbestos should be banned. The committee is scheduled to report to the policy implementation cell of the commerce and industry ministry by November 15.

“The first meeting of the committee failed to deliver as the asbestos lobby strongly opposed it,” said the joint convenor of the National Campaign Committee for Banning of Asbestos, S Bhattacharjee.
Asbestos manufacturers argued that a committee set up by the Union industry ministry in 1995 had said that asbestos could be used, if it did not contain chrysolite elements. They also argued that if asbestos were to be banned, about 100,000 people engaged in this industry, including 60,000 engaged in mining, would lose their jobs.

In India, asbestos is mined in five states — Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Haryana. Experts fear that the world over, 550,000 workers will be affected by asbestos related diseases in the next 10 years; 240,000 of these will be in India alone.

India uses 107,000 tonne of asbestos fibre a year, of which 60 per cent is imported from Canada, which also accounts for 80 per cent of the world production of asbestos.

“We expect the Rajagopalan Committee to come out with realistic recommendations, otherwise our struggle will continue and more and more people and organisations will come out to support us,” Mr Bhattacharjee said.

Mr Bhattacharjee does not seem to be exaggerating. The Indian Medical Association (IMA) is organising an international seminar in Delhi in January 2002, demanding a ban on the use of asbestos.

Internationally, too, public opinion is mounting in favour of banning asbestos. An international seminar demanding a ban on the use of asbestos in developing countries will be held on November 2 this year in Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires. The seminar is being organised by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), WHO and other organisations.

When France banned import of asbestos from Canada, the issue flared up into a dispute before the World Trade Organisation. The WTO court said asbestos was such an element that every country had the right to ban it. Last year, French company Everit stopped production of asbestos.

At present, use of asbestos is banned in 22 developed countries, including 16 in the European Union, the US, New Zealand and developing countries such as Indonesia, Syria and Saudi Arabia. Some developing countries such as Argentina, Malaysia and Brazil have already decided to ban asbestos and the decision is to be implemented soon.

The US Environmental Protection Agency and WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer also stress that all forms of asbestos cause asbestosis, a progressive fibrotic disease of the lungs. All can cause lung cancer and malignant mesothelioma, too, they say.