No foreign funds, its our sweat and toil

CHENNAI: Expressing anguish over the campaign initiated in certain quarters painting the protests in Idinthakarai with a communal shade, a number of women from villages near the Koodankulam nuclear plant, here on Saturday, said that the funds for the protests were entirely sourced from within the community and it was the Union government that now looked like “being guided” by foreign forces.Addressing a press conference here, 11 women from Idinthakarai, Koodankulam and Vijayapathi, also members of the People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy, said each member of the community contributed a share of their daily earning to the protests and every such contribution was being recorded.Expenses for the protests were taken care of by people of the host village while general expenditure was met from the general fund to which all villagers contribute. When the stir began, each villager contributed `200 per ration card apart from extra donations from well-to-do villagers, they said.Elaborating on the sequence of events that occurred around the plant to this date, the women, led by Nagercoil based social worker Lidwin, said the fears about safety were accentuated after the authorities conducted a disaster management drill.“The very fact that they prepared us for a disaster means they are not sure that the plant is cent per cent safe,” they said. On the questionnaire that they had submitted to the Muthunayagam panel, the women said that important questions, about ten in number, regarding safety, have been sidestepped by the experts.For over 15 questions, the panel had asked the activists “to refer to information on various websites,” they said.On former President Abdul Kalam’s plant safety endorsement, they said they had high regards for Kalam, but his views could not be taken at face value.They alleged that Kalam had on a previous occasion expressed “reservations about its safety.” Members of the group said that even during the dry runs conducted at the plant, there was “huge noise” and alleged that this had caused a lot of health issues. The authorities did not stop the dry runs even though they promised to “switch off the machines” after representations, they said.On the incident on Friday when the group was detained by the police at the Egmore railway station, the women said they were treated like “terrorists and prostitutes” despite making it clear they were here for peaceful purposes. However, they reiterated that they had full faith in Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and appealed to her to make it clear to the Centre that people of Tamil Nadu did not want a nuclear plant at Koodankulam.