Appealing to Collector M. Karunakaran seeking immediate closure of units preparing poultry feed from trash fish in their area, a group of people from Irukkanthurai village panchayat submitted petition to the Collector on Monday.
The petitioners said life became miserable for a few thousand people living in 50 villages under Irukkanthurai, Chettikulam, Thanakkarkulam and Adangankulam panchayats in Radhapuram union after permission was granted to four companies for starting poultry feed manufacturing units that use ‘trash fish’ as their raw material. With the rotten ‘waste fish’ (marine products not suitable for human consumption) being procured in Kerala, Karnataka, Kanniyakumari and Thoothukudi, these companies manufacture poultry feed and the feed meant for the prawn farms.
“Stench unbearable”
“As unbearable stench would emanate from the rotten trash fish, the raw material required for preparing poultry feed, and the foul odour envelops all 50 villages situated within a few km of these manufacturing units. Since all these villages are situated on the stretch where wind velocity would be high throughout the year, people living in the hamlets along the wind direction lead a miserable life ever since these units started functioning. Though we’ve forwarded several representations to the officials of revenue and pollution control board, no action has been taken to close down the units,” said the petitioners.
Since these factories use several lakh litres of water every day to clean the fish prior to and during processing, the waste water was discharged into a dry channel, which aggravated the situation, the villagers said.
“When we started protesting against these units and the discharge of waste water into the channel, they are storing it in a huge well-like structure and transport it in tankers. This illegal practise has seriously affected the quality of groundwater, which can’t be used even for domestic purposes. We’ve been forced to buy water for drinking,” they said.
Accompanied by K.G. Bhaskaran, district secretary of Communist Party of India (Marxist), the villagers submitted a petition to the Collector.
