PMK president Anbumani Ramadoss walked into a consultative meeting held by the State government as an ‘uninvited guest’ at the Secretariat in Chennai on Tuesday on the contentious issue of land acquisition by Neyveli Lignite Corporation India Limited for expanding its mines in Cuddalore district.
The meeting was attended by Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister M.R.K. Panneerselvam, Industries Minister Thangam Thennarasu, Labour Welfare and Skill Development Minister C.V. Ganesan, Chief Secretary V. Irai Anbu and other officials and people’s elected representatives.
Sources close to Dr. Ramadoss claimed there were attempts to persuade him against attending the meeting, as someone “strongly opposing acquisition of fertile agricultural lands in Neyveli”, but he refused to heed the plea.
After the meeting, Dr. Ramadoss told journalists that he participated “as a representative of the farmers”, who were not invited to the meeting, and to reiterate his party’s point of view that NLC is not required for Cuddalore district.
“NLC has been the reason for many health related issues such as asthma, bronchitis and lung cancer in Cuddalore over the last three generations. The ground water in Cuddalore has depleted considerably from 8 feet to 1,000 feet today. Only in 1989, they gave permanent jobs to those who had given them lands. In the last one year, PMK has organised sustained protests against NLC,” he said.
Dr. Ramadoss said he wanted to attend to meeting to register his strong protest.
“Out of the 9 mines, 7 are in Cuddalore district. One is in Ariyalur and other in Thanjavur district. Mine 1, 1 A and 2 are in operation. Six other mines are being planned. Only after PMK took the issue, the Chief Minister said no mines will be permitted in Cauvery delta region. Out of the 6 mines, 5 are situated in protected agricultural zone. NLC mine 3 is situated in the zone.
“PMK’s demand is that the Chief Minister should say that NLC mine 3, Veeranam new coal mine project, Palayamkottai coal mine project, Sethiathoppu East coal mine project, Vadachery coal mine project and Michaelpatti coal mine project will not allowed,” he said.
According to him, though people are resisting the acquisition of lands by the NLC for the three coal mines that are operational, 13,000 acres of land are being acquired for expansion.
“For rest of 6 mines, about 1,40,000 acres are about to be acquired. Farmers are protesting against it. Police are being used to acquire the lands. PMK will not allow this to happen. It is not just a problem of Neyveli but one that concerns whole of Tamil Nadu, especially because the every acre of fertile land is important due to the projected food shortage in future due to climate change crisis,” he said. The PMK will not accept point of view of a few parties that farmers should be compensated fairly for their lands.
