Local media in India report that hundreds of people gathered in the Tuticorin district, which is located in the southeastern state of Tamil Nadu, to protest against Vedanta's (LON:VED) Sterlite copper plant.
The protesters were asking authorities and the company to stop expanding the smelter and to shut it down. They say that, for more than two decades, gas emissions and effluents from the facility have been polluting groundwater in the area, all of which has caused an increase in serious diseases among the residents of surrounding villages.
According to the Press Trust of India, many shops in the area remained closed in response to a business strike called by 50 associations in support of the protesters.
The rally took place on Saturday, just one month after 250 people were arrested in the same district for holding a hunger strike against the plant's expansion.
Activists have been ramping up protest actions as Vedanta's plan to double the smelter's capacity from 400kt to 800kt p.a in 24 months has just started. "Completion of this project will make the Tuticorin smelter one of the world's largest single-location copper smelting complexes," the company has said in corporate statements.
Such expansion goal worries many citizens who still recall that back in 2013, the Tamil Nadu's Pollution Control Board had to close the plant after a sensor in the smelter's smokestack showed sulphur dioxide levels were more than double the permitted concentration at the time.
A few days later, India's Supreme Court allowed the plant to restart operations. However, the company had to pay a fine of over $15 million for polluting the surrounding land and water sources and, according to the press, for running the smelter without approval for a considerable period of time.
MINING.com reached out to Vedanta India for comment on the protesters' allegations but did not receive a response by publication time.