BY S VENKAT NARAYAN Our Special Correspondent
NEW DELHI, September 19: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayaram Jayalalithaa today asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to suspend work on the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project till the fears of the people in the area are allayed.
In a letter to him, she said: "I request you to kindly issue suitable instructions to the concerned authorities that further work on this project may be halted, until this issue is settled."
"It is unfortunate to see that the Centre is abdicating its responsibilities. The Prime Minister should have sent a high-level team to allay the fears and misgivings of people in Koodankulam area," she added.
It is "surprising" that no responsible ministers or concerned higher authorities from the Union Government have visited the people or even attempted to assuage their misgivings, she added.
The local population and fishermen in and around Koodankulam have been agitating against the project, and intensified the protests in recent weeks. Around 100 persons are on an indefinite fast for the past nine days demanding that the project be shelved.
Her letter comes three days after she sought to allay the local people’s fears that the Indo-Russian joint venture in Tirunelveli district has adequate safety parameters and appealed to agitators to end their fast.
She said the plant was safeguarded even from a tsunami and was located in a zone not prone to earthquakes.
With barely three months left for the commissioning of the first of the two 1x1000 MWe reactors set up at the coastal village of Koodankulam district, Jayalalithaa said the scope and magnitude of the issue is creating a fear psychosis among people and villages surrounding the project area.
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