Voices get louder for underground drainage, as sea turns black in Rameswaram

Rameswaram: The local people’s clamour that an underground drainage system for the pilgrim-island should be taken up and executed on war footing, is getting louder by the day, as larger quantities of untreated sewage is being directly let out into the sea here, turning it into a vast cesspool of black sludge.

Residents complain that neither the Ramanathapuram district administration nor the State Local Administration department adhered to the rules in granting permission for new constructions, amid a good number of hotels in particular having come up in recent years, flouting coastal zone environmental regulations.

The problem of untreated sewage and septic tank contents being directly led to the sea at various places in Rameswaram is posing a huge health hazard, not only for the locals and fishermen but also for visiting pilgrims, residents complained, adding, despite repeated representations no effective action has been taken so far.

While 200 metres from the shoreline is considered traditional fishermen’s zone, “these areas have been encroached upon by new constructions, particularly hotels and the traditional fishermen are neither able to walk through the zone meant for them or dry their nets,” said S Muruganandam, secretary of the local fishermen’s association, affiliated to the AITUC.

“Fishermen are even scared to put out to sea as the untreated effluents mixing with sea water causes skin irritation and poses other health hazard including contracting malaria,” he said, and alleged that permission for new constructions by the local administration were being given without insisting on the required norms.

Tamil Nadu mechanised boats fishermen’s welfare association’s general secretary NJ Bose, expressing serious concerns at the developments, charged that as new buildings, particularly hotels proliferated on encroached lands along the shoreline in Rameswaram, the sea water here is no longer crystal clear as it used to be. As untreated sewage from the hotels and guest houses are directly drained into the sea, the water has turned black and it looks a huge pool of sludge and human wastes with the stench unbearable,” said Bose.

While a plan has been drawn for constructing an underground drainage system for Rameswaram and a sum of '5 was being collected every day from each fishing boat, Mr Bose rued that the project has hardly been taken up. The Tamil Nadu government in the larger ecological and health interests should implement the project immediately, he urged.