By IANS,
Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan Tuesday said he will lead an all-party delegation from the state to Delhi to canvass the need for an urgent ban on the highly dangerous pesticide endosulphan in the country.
Achuthanandan told reporters after a review meeting here to discuss the various schemes for endosulphan victims in Kasargode district that the delegation will meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other central leaders in this regard.
“We have decided to set up an endosulphan cell in the Secretariat here. A rehabilitation package will be there for the victims which includes providing houses for the homeless and even a pension scheme,” he said.
“The loans taken by the victims will also come under a moratorium scheme,” he added.
Endosulphan has become a major issue in Kerala. The Left MPs early this month staged a protest in front of parliament for the urgent need to ban it.
The use of the pesticide at the estates owned by the state-owned Plantation Corporation in Kasargode began in the early 1970s and continued till 2001. By then the damage was done.
Incidence of children born with neurobehavioural disorders, congenital malformations and other abnormalities have been reported in around a dozen panchayats of Kasargode.
Surveys conducted in the district show that close to a thousand marriages failed to materialise just because the men and women hailed from the areas where endosulphan was used.
While about 500 deaths from 1995 have been officially acknowledged as related to the spraying of endosulfan, unofficial estimates put the number of dead since the late 1970s to around 4,000.
The use of the pesticide was banned in Kerala in 2001 when A.K. Antony was chief minister.
The issue last month made headlines after Achuthanandan lashed out at union Minister of State for Agriculture K.V. Thomas, who gave an almost clean chit to the use of endosulphan in Kasargode while speaking at a public function.
A huge public outcry broke out in Kerala attacking him. It came from even the top brass of the Congress in the state.
After the backlash, Thomas said he was of the personal opinion that the pesticide should be banned.
Achuthanandan has been a staunch anti-endosulphan campaigner in the state for long and with the TV channels here currently running a huge campaign against the ill-effects of the pesticide, the Left government has taken up the issue in a big way.
“We will see that the basic health facilities in the worst-affected 11 panchayats of Kasargode are improved and the affected given proper treatment,” Achuthanandan said.