THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The crusade against transforming Vilappilsala panchayat into the city's dumping yard has cost hundreds of local natives a good part of their life. The residents still continue to spend 10 to 15 days every month in the court after being accused in over 27 criminal cases in which state government is a respondent.
It was only last week that they called off the five-year strike. Though the outgoing government and their MLA N. Sakthan have set the balls rolling for withdrawing these cases, the wounds are yet to heal. The dermatological ailments have dwindled.
The real estate benefit to panchayat now is Rs 45,000 crore. "Average land price has shot up from Rs 3,000 a cent to Rs 1.5 lakh. Fishes have started appearing again in streams once blackened by filth oozing from the garbage factory," Vilappilsala Janakeeya Samithi president S. Burhan said.
However, suspicion still continues as people's representatives talk about plans to relocate buried waste from Vilappilsala.
"Leave Vilappilsala as it is because we are afraid this could be another ploy. Political parties always tried to sabotage our agitation," said L. Hariram, another protester. At the peak of the agitation participated by women and children at Nedunguzhi, politicians came in their support. Soon they disappeared from frontline and stone pelting started against police and waste-laden trucks.
Cops were provoked into arresting men and such incidents transcended to criminal cases that haunt agitators. Similar agitations in India often failed because of such tactics as they don't fight persistently in court as a group.
"We ensured that all of them go in buses to various courts. One family will bring food parcels as we go," a woman agitator said. Lawyers Kaleeshwaram Raj and G Purushothan appeared for agitators at the National Green Tribunal and Chennai high court which came out with positive judgements.
The agreement the city corporation had with Poabs company says the civic body had to pay around Rs 50,000 per day if it failed to provide 350-tonne waste to the plant. "It was a conspiracy. The city wasn't generating 350 tonnes and it had to create waste just for dumping in Vilappilsala. They were not being processed but merely buried," Mr Hariram added.
Vilappilsala has found itself a place in annals of Kerala history as the discussion of decentralised waste management started here. Members of a dozen environmental protection movements across the state still visit the district to take lessons from Vilappilsala agitators.
