DMK cadre send postcards to Union minister seeking copy of EIA draft notification in Tamil

MADURAI: DMK cadre led by Padmanabhapuram MLA and the party’s Kanyakumari west district president T Mano Thangaraj sent 400 postcards to the Union minister of environment, forest, and climate change Prakash Javadekar on Tuesday seeking copies of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) draft notification in Tamil. They also pressed for the scrapping of the draft.
The protest and petitioning campaign was held at the Thuckalay head post office.
“There are 400 hamlets in my assembly segment and we have sent one postcard each representing a hamlet,” the MLA said. He added that the postcards were in Tamil as the petitioners know only Tamil and not any of the languages in which the EIA draft is now available.
This would make it difficult for the people of the assembly segment understand the huge loopholes in the draft that favour the corporates and are against the interest of the people and flora and fauna, he added.
In the postcards, the petitioners said that the deadline for public hearing and feedback on the draft should be fixed only after the draft is made available in Tamil and in other regional languages. DMK youth in the district is also sending emails to the ID provided by the ministry to receive feedback on EIA.
On Monday, the MLA and activists also staged a protest in front of the district collectorate at Nagercoil pressing for the same demands.