Pottipuram residents hail order, but academia, experts upset

Madurai: Villagers in Pottipuram in the Bodi West hills where the underground laboratory for the India-Bbsed Neutrino Observatory was planned welcomed the National Green Tribunal, Southern Zone order for a fresh environment assessment. But educationists feel it would affect scientific advancement and deny employment opportunities for rural students in southern districts.

Selvaraj from T Pudukottai, a village located close to the site, said that establishing this project was in no way going to benefit the community. Rather it would affect the livelihood of people in eight villages located near the village and the pastoral land for livestock, he said.  "This hill is a God to us. Damaging it is like killing our lives," said villager Perumal.

However, education experts feel it would affect the development of scientific research in southern Tamil Nadu. "After we collaborated with the INO project for the last two years, many science students from our colleges are showing keen interest to pursue research in neutrino project. This order is a disappointment for us," said M Davamani Christober, principal of American College, Madurai.

The physics department of the college, in collaboration with INO, set up a muon detector in the institute and four professors from the department have also been associated with it. "The project has provided great research opportunities for us to examine muon, an elementary particle, to identify whether neutrino can be produced from the reactions," said Deborrah, professor of physics involved in the project. The order would affect the ongoing research in our college and cause disappointment to young scientists, she said.

Satyanarayana Bheesette, scientific Officer (H), Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, who was actively involved in establishing the INO project since the beginning, said," For the last 15 years we have been running from pillar to post explaining the benefits of the project to the government, students and communities in the state. I have visited almost all the colleges in Madurai and created a positive mindset among the students explaining that the Neutrino project is not going to cause any environmental damage," he said. "But this order will again delay the project when the other countries which started the project after us are making a progress," he concluded.