Villagers of Pedda Dhanwada and nearby areas halted Gayathri Renewable Fuels’ ethanol plant project after bouncers, brought in by the company, injured a woman, triggering mass outrage over pollution fears and corporate aggression
Published Jun 13, 2025 | 6:04 PM ⚊ Updated Jun 13, 2025 | 6:28 PM
People’s rage erupts in Pedda Dhanwada! (@Krishank_BRS on X)
Synopsis: On 4 June, villagers in Pedda Dhanwada, Jogulamba Gadwal district, opposed the setting up of an ethanol factory by Gayathri Renewable Fuels. Tensions escalated after company-hired bouncers injured a woman, leading to violent protests. Locals torched company property. While the unrest was portrayed as public vandalism, villagers claim it was a reaction to provocation and environmental concerns
On Wednesday, 4 June, the villagers of Pedda Dhanwada in Rajoli mandal of Jogulamba Gadwal district, along with people from surrounding villages, thwarted the attempts by Gayathri Renewable Fuels and Allied Industries to establish an ethanol factory on the village outskirts.
The people who feared the pollution from the factory opposed it. When the private security guards and bouncers brought in by the company attacked the villagers, injuring a woman named Mariyamma by smashing her head, the resistance escalated into a full-blown outburst of public anger.
The protesters demolished and set fire to the container meant to serve as the company’s office and torched the company’s vehicles. To those who saw only those visuals, it may appear that the public engaged in violence and vandalism. The police and government also viewed it the same way and filed severe criminal charges.
The FIR names 40 individuals and vaguely mentions “and others,” leaving room to implicate more people on the way. So far, twelve have been arrested. MM Rahman, editor of Janam Sakshi Telugu daily newspaper, has been named Accused No. 2 (A2).
Police say they are searching for 29 more individuals. Raids—official and unofficial—are being carried out in surrounding villages, harassing the residents. Activists and political leaders trying to visit Dhanwada to understand the facts and express solidarity with the affected people are being stopped by the police.
In reality, what happened there was an expression of public outrage. When there is a deep and dangerous chasm between the model of development imposed by rulers and the actual lives and safety of the people, such a violent outburst is a natural consequence.
The same kind of opposition to ethanol factory proposals has been seen earlier in places like Chittanur in Narayanpet district, Dilawarpur in Nirmal, Stambhampalli in Jagtial, Ravipahad in Suryapet, and Guggilla in Siddipet. Pedda Dhanwada is no different.
Those who think that the arrival of any factory in a rural area is automatically “development” must understand how such “development” scorches the lives of people. There are many reasons people oppose ethanol factories—from the fear of immediate dangers to their daily lives, to scientifically backed concerns raised by environmentalists.
Immediate worries include: the enormous quantity of water these factories consume, the potential threat to local water sources, and the air and water pollution that could harm their health, crops, land, and local ecosystems. These fears are not the product of some environmentalist’s imagination.
Wherever an ethanol factory is proposed, local people have visited areas where such factories already exist and witnessed the destruction firsthand. Based on those experiences, movements have been launched to prevent ethanol factories in their own localities.
In places like Dilawarpur, these movements have been successful. In Chittanur, they haven’t. In Parlapalli, Karimnagar district, people have been suffering for over ten years from the poisonous effects before they even understood what hit them. People fear their lands will become polluted, their agriculture ruined, their health destroyed by life-threatening illnesses. And then there’s the cold, hard scientific reality.
According to environmental studies, ethanol factories release toxic gases like acetaldehyde, formaldehyde, acrolein, and hexane during the fermentation process. Exposure causes eye, nose, and throat irritation, headaches, nausea, vomiting, and difficulty breathing.
Long-term effects include cancer, asthma, chronic bronchial inflammation, and pulmonary constriction. These gases can also harm fetuses, causing babies to be born weak and underweight.
The wastewater discharged from these factories contains hazardous substances that are dangerous to aquatic life and human health. So, why are such dangerous factories being established?
In 2021, the NDA government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party introduced the Ethanol 20 Policy, aiming to blend 20 percent ethanol into petrol by 2025–26. To encourage this, it offered incentives such as rice at ₹20 per kilo to factory owners, interest-free loans for six years, and government purchase agreements for the produced ethanol.
These massive subsidies and incentives have turned ethanol into an “incentive industry.” But there’s more—ethanol production was exempted from mandatory public hearings previously required for polluting industries, allowing these factories to be set up without informing or seeking consent from local communities.
This raises the question: Whose development is this government pursuing at the cost of people’s lives and health? Following the central government’s 2021 announcement, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government eagerly approved around 30 ethanol factories under its corporate-friendly TS-iPASS industrial policy.
Businessmen from all political parties are among the beneficiaries. After the Congress came to power in December 2023, it too continued the same policy without change.
Thus, a businessman from Madanapalle in Chittoor district (reportedly a YSRCP leader) obtained permission for the Pedda Dhanwada ethanol factory and began construction in October 2024 on 30 acres. Once the villagers discovered it was an ethanol factory, they stopped the work. The factory site is adjacent to assigned lands and house plots allotted to Dalits.
Fearing their lands would become unsuitable for farming and their homes unlivable, these residents expressed their concerns. When construction resumed in January 2025, villagers and people from neighboring areas launched relay hunger strikes.
After more than two weeks of peaceful protest, authorities and political leaders assured them the factory would not be allowed, so the agitation was paused.
But the factory threatens not just Pedda Dhanwada. At least 12 nearby villages like Chinna Dhanwada, Nasanur, Mandoddi, Nowroji Camp, Chinna Thandrapadu, Veni Sompur, Tummilla, Thanagala, Pacharla, Keshavaram, Pedda Thandrapadu, and Rajoli—and 30–40 surrounding villages—would suffer air and water pollution.
Since Pedda Dhanwada lies upstream of the Sunkesula dam on the Tungabhadra river, there’s also concern that polluted wastewater might be discharged into the river. It takes 4 liters of water to produce 1 liter of ethanol.
This factory plans to produce 2 lakh liters daily—meaning 8 lakh liters of water will be used per day, threatening local agriculture. It also needs 2.25 kg of rice per liter, consuming 4.5 lakh kg of rice daily. This could push the state into a food security crisis.
Those who lament, “But isn’t an ethanol factory development? How can you oppose development?” must examine these facts and ask: Whose development is this? At what cost to whose lives? And there’s not even any significant employment benefit.
As per TS-iPASS statistics, this factory will employ only 50 people. None of those jobs may go to affected villagers. The industry boasts a ₹190 crore investment—but that capital comes from public funds and interest-free bank loans. It might be diverted elsewhere.
Loans might go unpaid. Subsidized rice may be sold in open markets for profit. If at all ethanol is indeed produced, it will destroy local lives and health while being sold at high prices to oil companies—looting public wealth at every stage. This is nothing short of a grand plunder operation from start to finish.
And amid this tragic saga, it is laughable that a so-called “leader of backward castes” should dismiss this people’s movement as a conspiracy to block an industry owned by a “backward caste person.”
(Edited by Ananya Rao)
