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Tamil Nadu
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Chennai
POSING HEALTH HAZARDS : Smoke from the garbage dumped and burnt in Perungudi.
CHENNAI: The public hearing on waste dumping at Pallikaranai marshland, organised by the expert committee on solid waste management at Pallikaranai, on Sunday saw a good response from residents and environmentalists. Initiating the meeting, Sheela Rani Chunkath, convener of the expert committee, said the Corporation Commissioner had pointed out that it was hard to entirely stop dumping operation at the Perungudi yard because of the space constraint. Thoraipakkam resident Dheena Rajan, who works for a software company located opposite the yard, said the Perungudi sewage treatment plant was overflowing with raw sewage and had affected her well water, which had turned red in colour. Ms. Rajan recalled an incident when she complained to the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board and an official asked her: “Why did you buy a house near Perungudi dump yard?” “My husband and I suffer from rashes and suffocation because of the burning of garbage and our health, which was much better before we shifted to Thoraipakkam, has deteriorated,” she added. S. Kumararaja, convener, Save Pallikaranai Marsh Land Forum, thanked the State Government for declaring a portion of the marsh land a protected area under the Forest Act. He wanted the entire marsh land, including the dump yard, to be brought under the Forest Act. In response to the suggestion from Ms. Chunkath on source segregation of waste by individual households, Mr. Kumararaja said Neel Metal Fanalca (NMF), which takes care of the conservancy operation in four zones of the city, should undertake source segregation of waste. Producing photocopies of the agreement signed between the Chennai Corporation and the NMF, he asked what stopped the civic agency from enforcing source segregation of waste by the private conservancy operator. S. Kannan, a resident of Rajeev Nagar, Thoraipakkam, complained that the dumping of garbage and letting out of raw sewage water had completely destroyed the environment. Mr. Kannan said: “Residents are facing big health hazards because of the environmental degradation here.” On an average he spends Rs. 2,000 a month on medical expenses for his family, with Rs. 200 being spent a day on purchase of water for drinking, cooking and washing. Jaysree Vencatesan, joint director, Care Earth, an environmental organisation that has undertaken studies on the Pallikaranai marsh land, spoke in detail about the history of the marsh land, which was once spread over 5,000 hectares. It has gradually been reduced to 500 hectares because of parcelling of the marsh land to government agencies, she pointed out. She said that with the marsh land being the rain water buffer zone for south Chennai, the reduction in the size of the marsh land was also the reason for flooding of residential localities. Gopal Krishna, an environmentalist from New Delhi, said Chennai Corporation, which was exploring production of refuse-derived fuel (RDF) pellets from garbage at the Perungudi dump yard, should rescind such a move, as it was a failure in other States. Mr. Krishna said the compacting of waste was another way of releasing toxic fumes and affected the public health and environment.
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