Landfill facility: Villagers to take up issue with CM

Chennai, Jun 4 (UNI) After a year-long protest against the proposed hazardous waste landfill facility and incinerator at Gummidipoondi, near here, by the Tamil Nadu Waste Management Limited (TNWML), representatives of six women's Self-Help Groups (SHGs) are planning to take up the issue with Chief Minister M Karunanidhi.

Though Madras High Court stayed the construction of the facility on a petition filed by the Gummidipoondi Panchayat, the people want the government to drop the proposal.

The SHGs charged the company with forcibly trying to set up the project with the help of the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) in violation of law.

''The site approved by the Government of Tamil Nadu for the project is a low-lying area, adjacent to a lake and rich in ground water.

''We will not allow the project which will destroy our water resources,'' said Lalitamma of Roza SHG.

The villagers criticised the TNPCB for 'giving consent for the project without conducting Environmental Impact Assesment (EIA).

On January nine this year, villagers lodged complaint with the police after the company began construction work 'even without TNPCB's approval.' TNPCB issued the approval a day after the police complaint was filed, alleged the villagers who entered the project site and halted work.

The irate villagers approached the Supreme Court Monitoring Committe on Hazardous Wastes for redressal.

Efforts to meet the Chief Minister during the erstwhile AIADMK Government to solve the impasse failed, a representative of a NGO working in support of the villagers claimed.

UNI AJ GM RP BD1712