The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Cuddalore News : Petitioners seek alternative sites from NLC

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Sep 14, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Cuddalore

Petitioners seek alternative sites from NLC

By Our Special Correspondent

CUDDALORE, SEPT. 13. Over 2,000 people, including women and children, living in unauthorised tenements in and near the Neyveli Township, assembled on the Manjakuppam grounds here today to give "mass petitions" to the district Collector requesting alternative sites, as the Neyveli Lignite Corporation (NLC) management has reportedly given them notice to vacate.

As the District Revenue Officer, M. Ganesan, officiating as Collector, was busy with a grievance day meeting, the Revenue Divisional Officer, Mahendravel, along with a strong posse of policemen, came to the grounds to collect petitions, running into hundreds.

Later, a handful of their representatives met Mr. Ganesan and vented their grievances. The DRO told them that he would hand over the petitions to the Collector, Gagandeep Singh Bedi, for further action.

Earlier, the petitioners came by scores of lorries, tempos and mini-lorries to Manjakuppam and held aloft petitions and placards, highlighting their demands.

A spokesperson, V. Sathyamurthy, told The Hindu that they were not affiliated to any political party or trade union. They were mostly daily wage workers, contract labourers (engaged by NLC contractors), and service providers, including washermen, vegetable vendors, provisional and other shopkeepers, dwelling for about four decades at places such as Block numbers 29 and 30, S. Block, Thideer Kuppam, Workshop Gate and Anna Nagar located in or in the vicinity of the Neyveli Township.

Almost all the families had obtained ration cards and Electors' Photo Identity Cards, the copies of which they had attached with their petitions. Though they were either directly or indirectly linked to the NLC, the management was going ahead with its expansion plans, Mr. Sathyamurthy said.

Allege discrimination

The women too had a litany of grievances: they alleged discrimination in getting medicare and basic amenities such as water, drainage, toilets and roads. Therefore, they urged the District Administration to intervene and prevail upon the NLC management to take up expansion works after duly sanctioning alternative places.

Some of them even stated that if the officials do not resolve the issue speedily, they would resort to protests, which would shut off electricity supply to the southern grid.

NLC sources said that whenever need arose, the management was removing encroachments that had come up on the prospective project areas. Since the encroachers were not the NLC employees they were being evicted by observing the legal procedure such as serving notice on them, and as such their demand for alternative sites was untenable, they said.

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