Mercury contamination in HLL factory workers: employees

Mumbai, May 17 (UNI) Several former employees of Hindustan Lever's mercury thermometer factory in Kodaikanal have alleged that mercury contamination in the factory has severely affected the health of the workers.

Addressing a press conference here today ahead of the Company's annual general meeting, eleven of such former employees have urged the share-holders to take up this issue in the AGM.

These former employees alleged that exposure to toxic mercury has caused various health problems including neurological disorders, tremors, bleeding gums, heart disorders, and renal malfunctions, and high levels miscarriage among female employees.

Speaking on behalf of the workers, Navroz Mody, a resident of Kodaikanal and a former member of the Supreme Court Monitoring Committee (SCMC), said in March 2001, that massive dump of mercury containing wastes are lying in a scrapyard in a crowded part of Kodaikanal town. Even now, several thousand tonnes of mercury wastes are lying inside and around the factory, he alleged.

In early 2003, the Company had been forced by the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board to have 289 tonnes of its mercury waste to be treated at a recycling facility in United States as no such facility exists in India, Mr Mody said.

Even the Supreme Court Monitoring Committee on Hazardous Wastes has taken a strict note of the existing mercury contamination in and around the factory site and ordered the Company to ''reinstate/restore damaged/destroyed elements of the environment'', Mr Mody said. The SCMC has also recommended that HLL should pay an advance of Rs 50 crore towards remediation and set up a health clinic and a non-polluting employment center for the health and economic rehabilitation of the affected workers, he added.

UNI