Chennai: Only a day after Anil Agarwal, chairman of Vedanta, said he was confident that his factory would be up and operating pretty soon, businessmen from Thoothukudi met ministers at the secretariat in Chennai and handed over a petition to revive the copper smelter.
S. Thyagarajan, president of the Thoothukudi Contractors Association, Dr N Rajesh Kar and M Selvam, who runs a transport company. along with senior citizens of Kumarettiyapuram who live near the Sterlite plant addressed mediapersons after submitting a petition at the Chief Minister’s office.
S. Thyagarajan alleged that protests were being orchestrated by a group of people who did not even reside in the area. “We have all been living there for decades. Nothing has happened to us,” he said. He also alleged that people claiming to be environmentalists have been receiving huge sums of money from unknown sources.
Dr Rajesh, an oncologist whose PhD thesis was on incidences of cancer in the state of Tamil Nadu, claimed that Thoothukudi’s cancer incidences are not any different from the rest of the state.
“Data from the Tamil Nadu Cancer Registry says that Thoothukudi’s cancer incidences in Chennai are the highest, followed by Kanyakumari. Thoothukudi is fifth on the list,” he said.
Meanwhile, the senior citizens urged mediapersons to visit their village and check if anybody has been diagnosed with cancer. “My father lived over a 100 years old, his last few years were spend very near to Sterlite. He died a completely natural death,” said Rajagopal, who added that people from their village aspire to work in the Sterlite plant after education.
However, mediapersons questioned Dr Rajesh asked of the 35 women whose uteruses had to be removed after arsenic poisoning. These women had also complained that several in their family were diagnosed with various kinds of cancer. “One needs to know that HPV, the cancer-causing virus is an infection. Chemical contamination cannot cause an infection,” said Rajesh.
When asked why they didn’t speak up during the protests, the people said that they submitted several petitions to district collector Sandeep Nanduri stating that the protests were false. “Our voices were not heard, we even requested the Chief Minister’s cell to meet,” S. Thyagarajan said.
