‘Mr PM, our families have grown in 17 yrs’

Three days before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visits the Tarapur Atomic Power Station, project-affected people (PAP) of the country's oldest nuclear plant raised various grievances regarding the promised rehabilitation, compensation, and employment, on Tuesday.

Three days before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visits the Tarapur Atomic Power Station, project-affected people (PAP) of the country's oldest nuclear plant raised various grievances regarding the promised rehabilitation, compensation, and employment, on Tuesday.

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A memorandum will be sent to the Prime Minister’s office seeking his intervention.

According to villagers, the state government did not take into account the natural growth of 1,700 families being rehabilitated from the villages of Popharan and Akkarpati where Units 3 and 4 of the power plant have been constructed.

The rehabilitation work for these two units started in 1989. While the survey list of families to be resettled was prepared in 1994, villagers were rehabilitated only in 2006.

“During the interim period of 17 long years, many changes have occurred in the families,” said Virendra Patil, a local. “However, no cognisance of this natural growth was considered when house plots and houses were distributed and more than a hundred families have been denied these facilities.”

“The 210 workers of Unit 1 and Unit 2 who worked in the radiation zone have been removed from work. We want them to be reinstated at Units 3 and 4 or at the nuclear plant that will be constructed at Jaitapur,” said Ramakant Patil, a resident.