Initiatives to provide momentum to the ongoing relief and rehabilitation package have suffered a serious jolt with the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government failing to initiate solid action to reconstitute the virtually defunct district-level endosulfan rehabilitation cell even six months after coming to power.
The activities of the cell that was reconstituted during the previous United Democratic Front (UDF) government, with the then Minister-in-charge of the district K.P. Mohanan as its chairman, have come to a standstill with many crucial decisions getting stalled despite four victims losing life in November alone.
In spite of repeated assurances by the State for the past three years that it would hold annual medical camps to add names to the official list of endosulfan victims, the programme had to be shelved citing various reasons, including the lack of adequate number of medical and para-medical staff.
The previous UDF government, at the end of an eight-day agitation by the mothers of endosulfan victims in front of the Secretariat on February 3, had assured that medical camps would be held in three places in the district in a bid to identify fresh victims.
‘Authorities clueless’
However, the authorities here appear clueless about holding such a programme in the immediate future, ‘Endosulfan Viruddha Samyuktha Samara Samithi’ chairman Ambikasuthan Mangad told The Hindu on Sunday.
Even though the truce arrived at with the agitators was made in the presence of the then Leader of the Opposition V.S. Achuthanandan in his capacity as the organising secretary of the agitation, no one in the government or in the Left parties took up the issue, the activist alleged.
Even though the LDF government had taken steps to partially write off loans taken by victims’ families for medical treatment and set aside Rs.10 crore for the relief package in the State Budget, the continuing delay in reconstituting the endosulfan rehabilitation cell despite reminding Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan recently was a matter of grave concern, he said.
Even though the Chief Minister had assured a group of delegates in Thiruvananthapuram that he would take up the matter with utmost priority, the authorities here were yet to get any clarity on various projects, including the development of the much- hyped comprehensive endosulfan rehabilitation village proposed in 25 acres of land in Badiadukka village, activist Narayanan Periya said.
“It is sad to note that around 1,600 suspected endosulfan victims, who were examined during the two medical camps held in 2013, cannot find their names on the official victims list even three years after the exercise,” he said.
Efforts to elicit the version of the District Collector on the issue failed as he could not be contacted over phone.
The samithi has now decided to organise a Collectorate march here on December 9 to highlight the ‘lax approach’ of the government and the need to rejuvenate the endosulfan rehabilitation cell, Mr. Ambikasuthan Mangad said.
