Health impacts According to a 2022 briefing by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), gas and particle emissions from the proposed steel plant would greatly exceed the limits set by the World Health Organisation. CREA estimated that the increased pollutants, such as particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, and sulphur dioxide, will likely cause a spike in respiratory, cardiovascular and skin diseases among the local communities. This is estimated to cause 94 deaths, 180 emergency room visits due to asthma, and 160 preterm births every year. Using a freshwater source for the industrial complex also raises concerns about water pollution, including potential contamination from industrial waste, which could affect drinking water sources and lead to health problems like gastrointestinal diseases. 

Lack of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) in the land acquisition process The transfer of people’s lands violates India’s established legal frameworks and the right to FPIC of the affected Adivasi communities, classified as Indigenous under India’s Scheduled Castes Act. According to villagers, the project will displace up to 40,000 people from their lands and livelihoods. In 2013, a study by the NYU School of Law estimated that 22,000 families in six villages in the Jagatsinghpur district would be affected, mostly people in ‘scheduled castes’, or Indigenous communities. Their eviction would violate the 2006 Forest Rights Act, which recognises the rights of forest-dwelling tribal communities to forest resources on which they depend for livelihoods, habitation, and socio-cultural needs. The same law requires public consultation of the villages’ assembly. Public consultations were held in 2019 in Gadakujang, but relevant information regarding the project, including the EIA, was not made publicly available. Many villagers were also deterred from attending due to a large police presence at the site, while some alleged being threatened with arrest by the police before the hearings, or being barred from expressing their concerns. 

Environmental Clearance for the project was suspended in March 2023. New plans were accepted in September 2024 by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. However, they have not yet been presented in a public hearing to affected communities, and still appear to address the environmental and social impacts of the project insufficiently.

Loss of livelihoods The project is set to evict people from land on which their livelihoods depend. The villagers’ most common streams of income include betel vine, rice, and cashew cultivation. Fishing also ensures nutritional security for the region’s population. 20-25,000 fishermen reside in the vicinity of the project area, relying on the fish from the Bay of Bengal and the Jatadhar River.

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Project site as per the EIA submitted by JUSL.

Photo: JSW Utkal Steel Environmental and Social assessment

The company reportedly offered a one-time cash payment of USD 3-5,000 to each family set to be evicted, equivalent to two to three years’ worth of income from betel farming for an average family. Domestic law recognises the right of affected families to be adequately compensated and rehabilitated. 

Violating the rights of human rights defenders Widespread peaceful opposition to the project by communities has been met with government repression, intimidation, and harassment, since 2005, and has ramped up since 2021.

In 2022 alone, more than 60 protesters were arrested, and 72 criminal cases were filed against more than 1000 local villagers. On January 14, 2022, the police, in riot control gear, cracked down on a protest in Dhinkia village, resulting in the injury of more than 20 villagers, including women and children. Every year, a “Black Day” is observed by the villagers on January 14th in remembrance of the police atrocities.

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Villagers of Dhinkia during a protest against JSW Utkal Steel on January 14th, 2025, on the anniversary of the 2022 police brutalities..

Photo: Anti-Jindal Movement

In the last two years, numerous villagers faced prolonged detention and denial of bail in connection with their participation in the protests. These detentions were met with serious allegations of torture and inhumane treatment by law enforcement officials while in custody. Several human rights defenders and their families have faced continuous police persecution. As of February 2025, the protests are still ongoing in Dhinkia, and there are about 70 cases pending against 1000 villagers.

Gender-based violence Instances of violence and brutality targeting female human rights defenders have been recorded. The documented gender-based violence includes threats of rape and sexual assault, harassment during night raids, and arrests carried out after sunset without the presence of a female police constable, violating legal protocols.

Lack of transparency JSW has not carried out a robust climate impact assessment for the megaproject to estimate its lifetime greenhouse gas emissions, showing a disregard for its climate impacts. The project developer proposes to use blast oxygen furnace technology with metallurgical coal: this is a significantly more harmful technology for manufacturing steel than electric arc furnace production methods. Furthermore, powering the plant with a captive coal power plant, rather than captive renewable or grid power, further increases the greenhouse gas emissions that will be generated by the megaproject.

Coal expansion Composed of three units of 300 MW each, the JSW Utkal Steel captive coal power plant will be used by JSW to power its steel manufacturing plant. Captive coal plants are coal-fired power station units that operate off the grid and are used to power specific industrial facilities. Captive coal power often falls through loopholes in the coal policies of financial institutions.

Greenwashing JSW Steel raised capital via sustainability-linked bonds (SLBs) issued in 2021. SLBs theoretically incentivise climate action by bond issuers by increasing the interest they must pay if they do not meet predetermined sustainability targets. This can incentivise the issuer to decarbonise while attracting capital from sustainability-conscious investors and underwriters. However, JSW's SLB targets are weak: it aims for an emissions intensity of 1.95 tonnes of carbon dioxide per tonne of steel it produces by 2030 – greater than the global crude steel production average emissions intensity of 1.91 in 2021.

Grave oversights of environmental impacts A court ruling in January 2022 alleged significant scientific shortcomings in the EIA for the JSW steel project. The filing highlights that sampling sites for the testing of pollution were poorly chosen, tables and units in the EIA were erroneous, no rationale was provided for the need to build a captive jetty within 500 meters of the existing Paradip port, the biodiversity assessment was lacking, and the relationship between the baseline study and the project impacts under a mitigation scenario were unclear. 

In March 2023, India's National Green Tribunal rescinded the clearance for the project after significant community opposition and appeals. The Tribunal cited community concerns over the loss of crops due to land clearing and the related loss of livelihood; pollution of drinking water and loss of freshwater sources in an already water-scarce area; the exacerbation of already significant pollution caused by activities in the local Paradip port and unnecessary construction of the additional jetty; and arbitrary deforestation in the proposed project area. The Tribunal found that these matters needed to be specifically addressed in the EIA, as, despite the huge investments this project would bring to the region, “principles of sustainable development cannot be ignored.”

Destruction of ecosystems The construction of a cargo jetty, included in the industrial park’s plans, would destroy a fragile ecosystem that sustains both marine and human life. The mangrove forests and sand dunes naturally protect the area from monsoons and cyclonic activities: their flattening and removal for the port’s construction would irremediably open the villages to the full strength of tidal surges, storms, and cyclones, common in the area.

Next to numerous fish and crab species, the coastline also hosts the largest mass nesting of Olive Ridley turtles, an endangered sea turtle species whose population is decreasing. The Indian government has an international legal obligation to protect this species and its nesting beaches, breeding, feeding and congregation areas, as well as its migratory pathways in the sea. 

Only 12 km from the area destined for the project lies one of the most polluted areas of India, the Paradip Port, classified as a “severely polluted area” by the Odisha State Pollution Control Board (with a Comprehensive Environmental Pollution Index score of 69.26, just bordering the “critically polluted” category). The construction of another heavily polluting project in the area would further stress the region’s environment, as well as the connected public health risks.

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Tree felling and land clearing happening in January 2025.

Photo: Anti-Jindal Movement