Salem: Hundreds of farmers of Salem district on Monday marched to the district collector's office here and gheraoed the Collectorate, to protest against the planned Salem-Chennai eight-way ‘green expressway’, as a joint project of the Centre and State.
The project has been reportedly approved with an outlay of Rs. 10,000 crore and will gorge through ecologically sensitive mountain routes, besides gobble up farmlands en route, the farmers said, adding, “come what may we will never allow the implementation of the Green Expressway project.” While the district administration said the landlords, including farmers and civilians could submit their objections to the project, the protests by farmers have been escalating by the day. On Monday, in view of the general grievances day, the Salem district farmers under the leadership of the 'All India Farmers Maha Sabha' district secretary, Mr. Ayyanthurai, presented a petition to the district collector, expressing their disapproval of the project.
Mr. Ayyanthurai later told reporters that 36-km of the proposed expressway stretch would be in Salem district, adding, the local farmers were totally opposed to the project. The farmers insisted that the Green road project should be withdrawn, as there were already various ways to go to Chennai from here and the new project would affect agricultural lands and deprive them of their farm livelihood. They vowed to submit a petition every day to the Salem collector until the project was given up. He charged that the Centre and State governments were taking up the project only under pressure from the 'corporate lobby'. "We are gradually losing our livelihood without yields, without sufficient rains. In this situation, the Tamil Nadu government has joined hands with the Central Government and has intensified the project implementation. Even if we die, we will not allow this project. We will file a petition against the project,” said Ayyanthurai.
