NGT directs TNPCB officer to inspect industry, to close unit if found violating norms
CUDDLORE, Aug 8, 2017: The National green tribunal has ordered the Tamil Nadu pollution control board's (TNPCB) environmental engineer (Cuddalore district) to inspect an industry in Sipcot industrial complex in Cuddalore district and take appropriate steps to shut it down if found that it has been operating without valid consent. Read more...

Pharma major's Cuddalore unit under NGT glare
CHENNAI, 7th August 2017: Pharmaceutical major Strides Shasun, which has secured the US Food and Drug Administration’s approval for its three plants in Puducherry and Cuddalore, is facing trouble. Read more...

Fear in villages over petrochemical project
CUDDALORE, August 6, 2017: "We are in no man's land and no one is bothered about us", said 50-year-old K. Sundaramoorthy, a farmer of Vallampadugai in Cuddalore district, where fears are mounting over a Central Government petrochemical project. Read more...

High Court orders notice on PCPIR
CUDDALORE, August 5, 2017: The Madras High Court on Friday issued notices to the Centre, Department of Chemicals and Petro Chemical, and Housing and Urban Development Department, on a public interest litigation. Read more...

PIL to quash government orders on delineating 45 villages
CHENNAI, 05th August 2017: A PIL has been filed in the Madras High Court to quash various orders of the State Housing and Urban Development Department delineating 45 villages in Cuddalore and Nagapattinam districts for inclusion under the proposed Policy Resolution for Petroleum, Chemicals and Petrochemicals Investment regions (PCPIR) as "local planning areas". Read more...

Centre Planning To Make Revisions In Petrochem Industrial Region Policy
Tamil Nadu, July 31, 2017: The Union Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers is planning to revise the Petroleum, Chemicals and Petrochemicals Industrial Region (PCPIR) policy 2007 after three of the four PCPIRs failed to achieve the "desired success". Read more...

'Petrochem project will lead to mass migration'
CHENNAI, JULY 30, 2017: Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) president Thol. Thirumavalavan on Saturday said that his party would seek public views in Cuddalore and Nagapattinam districts with regard to the creation of the Petroleum, Chemical and Petrochemical Investment Region (PCPIR). Read more...

'Centre considering changes in PCPIR policy'
Gandhinagar, July 30, 2017 Petrochemicals a commodity of the poor, says Dharmendra PradhanPetrochemicals a commodity of the poor, says Dharmendra Pradhan. Read more...

Govt in talks to revise policy on petroleum industrial regions
Gandhinagar, July 29, 2017: With some of the petrochemical industrial regions such as Paradip and Tamil Nadu not generating expected results unlike Dahej in Gujarat, the Government of India is in discussions of revising the Petroleum, Chemicals and Petrochemicals Industrial Region (PCPIR) policy. Read more...

PMK to oppose petrochemical hub
TAMIL NADU, JULY 29, 2017: The Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) would take the legal route to oppose the notification of wetlands in 45 villages in Cuddalore and Nagapattinam districts for the Petroleum, Chemicals and Petrochemicals Investment Region (PCPIR), said PMK youth wing leader Anbumani Ramadoss, at the launch of his party's 'Save Cauvery Mission' in Biligundulu on Friday. Read more...

'Sagarmala project will hurt fishers'
TAMIL NADU, JULY 28, 2017: The traditional livelihood of fisher people and the coastal communities living within the CRZ area (500 m. from the sea) was facing threat owing to industrialisationproposalsalong the coast as part of the Sagarmala programme, activists associated with the National Fishworkers' Forum have said. Read more...

Anbumani to launch Cauvery yatra today
CHENNAI, 28th July 2017: PMK's youth wing leader Anbumani Ramadoss is set to undertake a journey along the Cauvery river from July 28 in a bid to create awareness among the people living in those areas on the problems plaguing the river and the solutions to ease the water crisis. Read more...

Tamilnadu govt moves ahead on petrochemical hub, officer to be in charge of building approvals
Chennai, 25 July, 2017: Notwithstanding the stiff opposition from political parties and environmentalists to the proposed petrochemical hub in Cuddalore and Nagapattinam districts, the government appears to be going ahead with the project. Read more...

Poison in the air

ASHA KRISHNAKUMAR
in Cuddalore
Frontline
The Hindu
04 June, 2005

Poisonous gases released into the air by some chemical units in the SIPCOT industrial estate in Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu, continue to endanger the lives and livelihoods of people in a number of villages in the absence of government action.

At the SIPCOT industrial estate in Cuddalore. Gases released by chemical units have severely affected the air quality in the area.

VILLAGES in the industrial area on the outskirts of Cuddalore town in Tamil Nadu are increasingly being identified more by pungent smells than their names - smells of rotten cabbage, burnt rubber, rotten egg, neem, detergent, human excreta, decomposing bodies, mosquito coils, rotting bones, decaying chikoo fruit, and nail polish. The smells come from toxic chemical compounds that are manufactured or released as effluents by the 18 companies in the industrial area and which have been damaging the environment and the health of more than 20,000 people in about 20 villages. Read more...