TIRUNELVELI
Appealing to Collector Shilpa Prabhakar Satish to take action against the Pettai-based aluminium reprocessing unit releasing “poisonous gas” into the atmosphere, a group of residents from Pettai SIDCO Industrial Estate Labourers’ Colony submitted a petition to her on Monday.
The petitioners, wearing masks, said a new unit commissioned at SIDCO Industrial Estate in Pettai that was melting discarded aluminium products and aluminium waste to convert them into aluminium sheets was releasing “poisonous gas” into the atmosphere.
As aluminium containers, in which pesticide, chemical, medicines, had been once packed, were also being melted, the residents living in the SIDCO Industrial Estate Labourers Colony were suffering from a range of ailments, largely relating to ophthalmic and respiration-related ailments ever since the unit was commissioned.
Though the affected people had submitted petitions on different occasions to the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board officials, no action had been taken to check this health hazard, they said.
Hence, the Collector should instruct the TNPCB officials to inspect the unit.
The petitioners also appealed to the Collector to revive the registration of the houses in the Colony in their names. They said the State government ordered the registration of the houses of SIDCO Industrial Estate Labourers Colony where they were living in their names through a Government Order issued 10 years ago.
Subsequently, 14 of the 60 families living there got the houses while no step had been taken to give houses to the remaining 46 families.
Hence, the Collector should instruct the officials concerned to revive the registration of houses in the names of the labourers, they pleaded.
