Farmers demand plan to stop Kerala from dumping med waste

COIMBATORE: Past midnight recently, two trucks laden with a pile of medical waste and garbage from Kerala sneaked its way into a nondescript village near Pollachi, on Tamil Nadu-Kerala border.

It fortunately caught the eyes of vigilant villagers from Meenakshipuram days before Pongal. Both the lorries, were swiftly intercepted by a group of people, who grew suspicious over the heavy stench emanating from it. Upon confirmation, the trucks and their drivers were handed over to police in Anaimalai station.

If not for the alert villagers, the trucks may have clandestinely unloaded the waste in an isolated locality before returning to Kerala for another round of trip. Now the three accused persons, Sandeep (36), Suresh (32) and Rineesh (42), all hailing from Kerala are facing police action.

“However, they were just pawns in the hands of corporate firms and government bodies from the neighbouring state, which deputed them with the illegal task for a pay out of few thousands. Until their owners are taken to task, such incidents are bound to continue,” said S Ramamurthy, a farmer from Pollachi.

The incident comes amidst a recent direction from Chief Minister MK Stalin for clampdown against dumping of waste from Kerala along the state borders. He also expressed health and environmental concerns arising out of dumping of medical waste.

Till a few years ago, the villagers and farmers lacked awareness and didn’t resist instances of Kerala’s waste landing in their locality. It’s not so any more as the villagers have realised the serious health hazard posed by such dumping of garbage and medical waste.

“But every one of us is distressed over the lack of proper mechanism to control the continuing menace. Both the police and politicians are hand in glove in letting these garbage-laden lorries through check posts. It’s mostly those trucks owned by politicians from here that deliver building materials and other goods in Kerala and return with loads of garbage to dump in Tamil Nadu,” said G Patteeswaran, secretary of Anaimalai Old Ayacut Farmers Association.

In the first week of April 2021, Patteeswaran led an army of farmers to trap around a few lorries, which came to dump tonnes of medical waste in a farm land in Pollachi.

“Farmers used to stay awake at night to monitor lorries coming to dump garbage. Around midnight, as usual, we spotted over three lorries from Kerala making their way into a farmland to dump waste. Acting on our information, a large number of villagers gathered and foiled their attempts to dump waste at ‘Rettaimadai Pirivu,’ around five kilometers into Tamil Nadu from Kerala,” he added. The common practice is to dump waste into a pit and level it with soil in farmlands during night.

Even though incidents of dumping waste from Kerala have reduced drastically in recent times due to high vigil, the farmers called for a comprehensive action plan involving the district administration, police and activists to completely prevent such offences.