THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, JAN. 19. The State Human Rights Commission member S. Varghese has ordered the Mangalapuram Grama Panchayat secretary to produce all documents regarding the granting of licence to a private company for clay mining and running a clay-purification factory in the panchayat limits. Prof. Varghese, who visited the panchayat to look into complaints about health and environmental problems being thrown up by excessive clay mining, said he had directed the secretary to produce the documents at the next sitting of the commission on January 27 and the head of the Department of Environmental Sciences of Kerala University, V. Shobha, to conduct a detailed study on the problems caused by mining. The report would be submitted within three weeks, Prof. Varghese said.
The commission would seek reports from the Kerala State Pollution Control Board, the Department of Science and Technology and the Department of Mining and Geology on whether the company was observing the norms stipulated by the Government for mining operations. The commission was convinced of the gravity of the complaints regarding drinking-water scarcity, groundwater depletion and respiratory diseases caused by air pollution. The commission had attached top priority to environmental issues and would seriously study how mining would affect the future generation, he said.
Prof. Varghese first visited ward no. 7 of the panchayat and a huge crowd of women and children and activists of the Prathikarana Vedi, led by M.A. Latheef, which is spearheading an agitation against the mining operations, aired their grievances.
Activists of the Plachimada Aikyadhardya Samithi, led by S. Ajayan, and the Solidarity Youth Movement were also present to meet Prof. Varghese.
The local people collectively and individually apprised the commission of their woes. Women and children said that drinking-water shortage was acute and they were suffering from respiratory diseases. Even the schooling of children in the locale had been affected, they said.
The head of the Department of Biotechnology of the A.J. College of Engineering, M.A. Rasheed, said the students of the engineering college and the pharmacy college in the panchayat too were facing problems.
The ward member, Vijayakumaran Nair, who reached the spot, tried to justify the panchayat decision to grant licence and also said that the company was providing employment to the local people, but he had to withdraw soon in the face of public protests.
Mr. Ajayan said the commission should recommend the Government to stop the functioning of the factory that was posing health hazards. It was an infringement on the people's right to pure air and water, he said.
Mr. Latheef said the vedi and the local people would intensify the agitation if the authorities failed to address immediately the problems they had raised over the years.
