Chennai: Around 1,500 villagers Saturday laid siege to the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant in Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu to demand immediate cessation of all work at the site, said an activist. “On Saturday morning, around 10 people from West Bengal came to Kudankulam and asked for directions to the plant site. When villagers enquired about their mission, they said they were labourers hired by a contractor to carry out work inside the project site,” S. Sivasubramanian, coordinator of the People’s Rights Movement, an organisation fighting for the plant’s closure, said. “This only proves our charge that the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd is not respecting the Tamil Nadu government’s resolution to stop all activities till the fears of the locals are allayed,” he added.
As the word spread around, people from Kudankulam and surrounding villagers gathered outside the KNPP site gate and sat on protest.
“Men and women are sitting on both sides of the road and traffic is not blocked. However, nobody can go inside the KNPP site. More people are coming from neighbouring villagers,” R. Thadeus, an activist, told. He said more than 500 people are working inside the plant site and Saturday around 150 labourers were supplied breakfast from the NPCIL canteen.
There have been widespread protests against the two 1,000 MW nuclear power reactors that the NPCIL is building with Russian technology and equipment in Kudankulam, around 650 km from here.