DHARMAPURI: The decision of the government to set up a Defence Research and Development organisation (DRDO) research centre in the district was anti-people as well as anti-environment, said S P Udayakumar, coordinator of People Movement against Nuclear Energy.
Udayakumar who was here to visit an organic farm in the Nallampalli block of the district here on Thursday, in an exclusive interview to Express, said, “Even though Dharmapuri district is a dry land region, Nallampalli block has good green cover and conducive for sustainable farming. Without considering this, the government had planned to acquire hundreds of acres for DRDO in the region. It is an anti-people project.”
“Spending thousands of crores of money for the DRDO is utter waste. Already two Indian presidents, Prathiba Patil and Pranab Mukherjee, have expressed their displeasure over the functions of the DRDO.
“Meanwhile, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), had also commented that spending so much of money for the DRDO is non productive investment.”
Moreover, the DRDO doesn’t help the people in a big or meaningful way. If a DRDO research centre was set up here, it would restrict free movement of the people in the area, he said.
“It will lead to noise, air pollution, besides affecting the farming completely in the region. Further, locals will not get any job in the proposed centre and it will only help middlemen, contractors to make money,” he added. Pointing to various initiatives of the Centre, he asked, “Why the government was keen on implementing anti-environmental projects like CMB, INO, GAIL pipeline and the DRDO in Tamil Nadu?”