A total of 213 persons, including 83 women, were arrested on Monday while staging a road roko near Srivaikundam bridge, demanding a joint committee to monitor the desilting work under way in the Srivaikundam dam.
R. Nallakannu, senior leader, Communist Party of India, who led the road roko, S.P. Udhayakumar, anti-nuclear activist, and farmers were among those arrested.
Besides, many shops in Srivaikundam remained closed as traders expressed their solidarity to support the demands. Tamirabarani river water stored in Srivaikundam dam is a lifeline for the farmers of Tuticorin district and hence they demanded to undertake desilting works right from the first reach of the dam, execute maintenance works in all 18 shutters and installation of CCTV cameras adequately to record such works and ensure transparency.
Their demands included that the collection of sand and silt deposited in the dam should be used for building government offices and given to farmers for agriculture purpose. Once these deposits were removed from the dam, which is eight feet high, adequate storage of water would be ensured. As per a government order, the desilting by Public Works Department that commenced on June 30 was being carried out for 5.1 kilometre, in the upstream. In this stretch, a distance of 0.9 km was under the control of the Department of Forests and 4.20 km belonged to the PWD.
Sub-Collector S. Gopala Sundara Raj told The Hindu that process was on to obtain permission from the authorities concerned to carry out the work and complete it ahead of the north-east monsoon season.
He said once in 15 days, report on desilting had been forwarded to the National Green Tribunal, which ordered to execute the work.
