Not withstanding the district administration ordering the South Ganga Water Technology Private Limited to suspend operation of its desalination plant at Krishnapuram near here, people of the village and nearby villages staged a protest demanding its permanent closure.
Joining under the banner of CITU affiliated Tamil Nadu Meenpidi Thozhirsanga Koottamaippu, a large number of men and women from more than half a dozen villages walked in procession and staged the protest demonstration in front of the Panaikulam bus stand on Saturday, pressing the demand.
The villagers who threatened to enter the plant premises to ‘reside’ inside till it was shut down dropped the plan after Revenue Divisional Officer (RDO) R. Baby held talks with M. Karunamoorthy, secretary of the Koottamaippu, and village leaders on Friday night and explained the action being taken.
Mr. Karunamoorthy alleged lack of transparency in the action taken by the district administration. When it had ordered the company to suspend operation on July 5 for not setting right the infrastructure as per the guidelines why the order was made public only on Friday, he asked. “This was deliberately held under wrap”, he alleged.
After the villagers staged a series of protests, the district administration had constituted a joint committee, headed by the RDO. The committee after inspecting the plant, suggested that it to carried out some modifications and gave it a month’s time. The plant, however, failed to comply with the order.
The villagers were up in arms against the plant alleging that it polluted the waterbodies in the villages and polluted the groundwater source by discharging effluents. H. John Soundararajan, CITU district president, who led the protest, demanded that the district administration cleaned up the polluted waterbodies in villages and provided compensation to those affected after consuming the polluted water.
