TIRUPPUR: Farmers and the public have planned to field 400 candidates in the Tiruppur South constituency to draw the government's attention and to press for their long-pending demand of declaring of Mudalipalayam and Nallur as a 'contaminated zone'.
Around 573 tonnes of garbage are collected daily in 60 wards of the Tiruppur Corporation. A major part of this had been dumped in abandoned stone quarries in Mudalipalayam and Nallur in Tiruppur. On October 10, the Madras High Court banned the dumping of garbage in stone quarries.
However, farmers and the public are claiming that the groundwater and environment in the Mudalipalayam and Nallur areas have been affected by the waste already dumped in the stone quarries. They are also demanding that the stone quarries and related affected areas be declared as contaminated zones.
With no proper solution yet, they are planning to field around 400 candidates in the Tiruppur South constituency to attract the government's attention.
R Sathish Kumar, state secretary of the legal awareness wing of Tamilaga Vivasayigal Pathukappu Sangam, who filed a case in the National Green Tribunal (NGT-Southern Zone), said, "Groundwater in Nallur and Mudalipalayam has become completely contaminated due to the garbage, already dumped into stone quarries. Only the government can rectify this situation. For that, this area must be declared a contaminated zone. Then only the government will announce a scheme to fix it."
"At the same time, we put forward various requests to Corporation Mayor N Dinesh Kumar regarding this matter. But he did not listen to our requests. Instead, he used the police to suppress the people. Currently, he is contesting as the DMK candidate in the Tiruppur South constituency. We are going to field candidates to respond to him. Our candidates will not win. But they will split the votes," he added.
P Velusamy, Coordinator of Nallur-Mudalipalayam Environmental Protection Committee, said, "Our plan is to field 400 candidates. We are preparing candidates for that purpose. We know that this is difficult because it was a sudden decision. However, we are confident in our decision. For those unable to pay the deposit amount, we will cover it through sponsors."
"This is the time to teach a lesson to those who are negligent of our 10,000 votes during the protests against garbage dumping, before the court order. We are going to receive nomination papers on Saturday and will file them on Monday. In this matter, the Mayor acted against us. We will give a reply to him through this. Our plan is also to draw the government's attention to our request," he added.
Attempts to contact DMK candidate N Dinesh Kumar were unsuccessful.