About 20 kilometres from Jangi in Gujarat’s Kutch, Ambaben Ahir, a 56-year-old resident of Chandrodi village has been suffering from chronic headache and sleep disorders. Ahir was one of the many landowners of village who had sold their land to Suzlon Energy Limited, the wind turbine manufacturing giant in 2005 to make roads for the huge trucks carrying the blades to the company’s energy park.
“We were told our land will be taken to build roads only and the turbines will be set up far away from our home. But the company kept installing more wind turbines and now a windmill stands just 100 metres from my home. The movement of the blades causes an incessant motion of light and shadow that hurt eyes. Besides, the noise so loud that it is unbearable. I stay sleepless at nights due to noise even though I put cotton buds in my ears and shut the doors and windows,” Ambaben tells The Federal.
“I visit the health centre every 10 or 15 days like many villagers. I have been taking a pill for headache for the past 12 years now,” she adds.
Blowing away health
Kutch, the westernmost and the largest district of Gujarat has been a hub of wind energy since 2005. With an area of 45,674 square kilometres and three different ecologies – coastal area, hilly ridge and the desert guaranteeing open land and consistent high winds, the district has become the go-to choice for wind energy parks over the last two decades.
However, the clean energy has come at a price of health of the locals and damage to animal life and agriculture of the region.
“The first windmill near Jangi village in Kutch was set up close to the sea, about 10-15 kilometres from the village. But over the years, the windmills kept coming closer to our homes and the noise grew louder,” says 40-year-old Jenabhai Rabari, a resident.
The windmills in Jangi are getting closer to people's homes.
“In 2005, some officials came to our village and explained the importance of windmills to us. They told us that companies will come here to set up plants that will not impact the village at all. During that time the region was still recovering from the earthquake of 2001 that had flattened everything. So, when local brokers approached us and offered money in exchange of our land and promises of employment, people welcomed the windmills. But we slowly realised the impact of the pavan chakki (wind turbine),” says Jenabhai, a farmer who suffers from chronic headache and has lost hearing in his left ear.
Noticeably, the first windmills that came in Kutch were set up along the coastal areas from Surajbari to Mandvi talukas. But by 2012, the companies began expanding inland towards the villages in Bhuj, and Nakhatrana among others with the hilly ridge. The hilly ridge areas have high soil bearing capacity that not only reduces the foundation cost and also the maintenance cost that is high in coastal areas due to salinity in the soil.
“On a usual day, we get an average of 10 locals who come for restocking medicine for headache. Earlier, we used to annually procure medicines and other supplies for the PHC but since 2015-16 we run out of medicines by July or August. We also see a lot of children and toddlers with complains of ear pain and sleeplessness,” says Patel.
“There is only one hospital in this region which is the GK General hospital in Bhuj and it is far from most villages. So, people go to hospital only if something major happens else they come to the PHC in Chandrodi or to another PHC around 40 kilometres from here,” he adds.
According to a report published in 2009 by environmentalist and author Nina Pierpont, which was based on a survey of families living near windmill parks in Mexico, sleep disturbance, headaches, deafness, dizziness, vertigo, nausea, visual blurring and seizures are common impact of long-term exposure to the sounds of windmills. The symptoms are popularly called the ‘Wind Turbine Syndrome’.
Activists and environmentalists claim that they have been witnessing similar health issues amongst the locals of Kutch who live around the windmills.
“A team of doctors visit villages around the windmills every three or four months to distribute medicines and basic checkup since 2015. It was one of the clauses when the government hospital was handed over to Adani foundation for managing,” says a senior doctor of GK General hospital, Bhuj that is being managed by Adani Foundation run by Priti Adani, Gautam Adani’s wife since 2015.
“We advise tranquilisers (sleeping pills), anti-depressants and medicines like Aspirin to ease chronic headaches, dizziness and nausea among adults. But we are not fully equipped to treat the same symptoms in children as the same medicines can’t be prescribed for children. We tell the parents to take the children to Ahmedabad for treatment if they can afford,” adds the doctor on condition of anonymity.
“Several villages in Kutch have been overrun by windmills. On an average, there are about 600 wind turbines installed within a radius of 30 kilometres making this region one of the country’s densest sites for windmills,” says Mudita Vidrohi, an environmentalist based in Ahmedabad who has been working with locals of Kutch.
Noticeably, the first wind energy project was set up in December 2005 as part of the Suzlon Wind Farm at Lathedi taluka in Kutch with 11 windmills that later expanded to 1100 Mega Watt (MW) by 2014.
In 2018, Alfanar, a Saudi Arabia-based company announced a 300 MW windmill project stretching to about 50 kilometres for setting up of 131 wind turbines. In January 2019, 29 more mills by three companies including Adani, Torrent Power and Green Infra were approved in the region. In December 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated a 30,000 MW hybrid renewable energy park in Khavda, Kutch touting it as the largest clean energy project in the world.
The same year, the Gujarat government allotted land to five developers for the hybrid (solar and wind) renewable parks. As much as 19,000 hectares of land was allotted to Adani Green Energy Limited, Sarjan Realities Limited (Suzlon) was allotted 9500 hectares, NTPC was allotted 9,500 hectares, Gujarat Industries Power Company Limited 4750 hectares and Gujarat State Electricity Corporation 6,650 hectares.
“Most families now have a windmill towering over their homes. Apart from the noise, the vibration of the windmills can be constantly felt around the region. If there is no wind on a day, villagers of the region prefer to take a day off from work to sleep as the wind turbines fall silent on those days. Otherwise, sleep deprivation has become a household issue here. Men are less impacted as they leave the area for work in the day. It is the women and children who are paying the price of wind energy the most. Most women pop pills like food to cope with headache and have partial deafness. Hearing impairment is an issue amongst children too. I recall this one case when we helped a two-year-old to be treated in Ahmedabad. The child was first taken to the local PHC after she wouldn’t stop crying as she couldn’t sleep. The two-year-old was given sleeping pills but she started having seizures. Later the child was diagnosed with hearing impairment in both ears and epilepsy,” Vidrohi told The Federal.
The acceptance of health emergency
Noticeably, the management of the energy companies in the area are not unaware of the health issues of the locals.
“Yes, we do get many complaints from villagers living next to windmills about the noise. But we monitor the noise from the windmills. As per the directives of the levels prescribed by the Centre Pollution Control Board, if noise is under 45 decibels in the night and under 55 decibels in the day, we consider it fine,” Nayan Panchal, the environment officer at Suzlon Energy Limited’s office in Kutch tells The Federal.
In 2019, locals of five villages of Nakhatrana taluka of Kutch went to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) and filed a PIL in the Gujarat High Court claiming that wind turbine installations were in violation of the Micrositing Guidelines laid down by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy that states that a wind turbine cannot be installed within 500 metres of any residential area. Following which the court had sought a report from the state government that is yet to be filed by the BJP led state government.
Even as the report is awaited, people in the vicinity of windmills continue to pop pills to fight headache and sleep better.
