Has the Thoothukudi Sterlite plant been able to generate the medical oxygen supply it promised?

The neem tree in Kumarettiyapuram village in Thoothukudi district of Tamil Nadu was a media attraction in early 2018. Villagers would gather here every day in protest against pollution from the nearby copper smelting plant of Sterlite Copper, a company that is part of the Vedanta Group, and the opening of its second unit.

Anti-Sterlite protests that were until then largely restricted to the townsfolk, especially the fisherman community and environmental activists, soon spread from Kumarettiyapuram village to more than a dozen villages around Sterlite. The protests culminated in the death of 13 people due to police firing, following which the state government closed the plant.

Three years later, as India was dealing with an oxygen crisis during the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, Sterlite Copper offered to supply 1,050 metric tonnes of oxygen a day free of cost for Covid-19 treatment.

This was more than double the projected peak demand for oxygen in Tamil Nadu. But state government records show that oxygen supply from the plant for Covid-19 treatment had not crossed 90 metric tonnes on any day until June 30 since production started on May 13.

Oxygen supply is only among many outreach efforts that Sterlite Copper has undertaken ahead of a Supreme Court hearing of its appeal against the closure order. But…

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