A gram sabha meeting held in Koodankulam on Friday has unanimously passed a resolution against the move to set up an ‘Away From Reactor’ facility to store spent fuel being generated by the first and the second reactors of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project.
Similar resolutions passed at Chettikulam, Vadakkankulam and Aanaikulam panchayats strengthen the anti-nuclear groups’ voice against the proposed facility.
The gram sabha meeting, originally scheduled for May 1, was postponed due to the Model Code of Conduct ahead of Lok Sabha election. On Friday, it was held at Kudnakulam with around 250 villagers participating. They unanimously supported the resolution against the proposal to construct the ‘Away From Reactor’ facility. The officials allegedly tried to scuttle the move, but did not succeed.
Public hearing
The Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board planned a public hearing at Radhapuram on July 10 on the proposal, but postponed it indefinitely on receiving information that the meet would witness stiff resistance from anti-nuclear activists and residents of the villages around KKNPP.
When the gram sabha meeting was conducted by the nearby Vijayapathi, which includes Idinthakarai, the epicentre of anti-KKNPP agitations, it was expected that the rural civic body would adopt a resolution against the proposed facility. However, only a handful of people, who played active role in the Idinthakarai-based anti-nuclear agitations, participated in the meeting. As they moved the resolution against the proposal, the officials refused to allow it. Amidst heated arguments, Block Development Officer, Radhapuram Union, Selvaraj, who arrived at the spot, told the participants that they were free to air their opinion at the public hearing to be organised but not at the gram sabha meeting.
Though a small number of anti-nuclear protesters raised their demand, the police mobilised at the spot discouraged them from pressing it further.
Unexpectedly, gram sabha meetings held at Chettikulam, housing KKNPP’s Anu Vijay Township, Vadakkankulam and Aanaikulam panchayat near Valliyoor adopted resolutions against the ‘Away From Reactor’ facility, much to the jubilation of anti-nuclear groups.
The move to adopt a similar resolution at Kaavalkinaru village panchayat was thwarted by officials and the police.
