Sakthi Arulanandham (Translated by Thila Varghese)

The foremost environmental challenge confronting the Salem district is waste management. The effects of the unregulated disposal of ever-increasing waste—including medical waste, slaughterhouse waste, non-biodegradable plastics, industrial effluents, and dyeing-unit discharges—are starkly evident in the Thirumanimutharu River. Burdened with accumulating waste, the river can no longer flow freely through the heart of the city, but instead moves sluggishly, reduced to a slow and strained current.

It is a distressing and pitiable state that the river, once the primary source of drinking water for the city, has now been reduced to a sewage drain. While no solution has yet been found to this ongoing problem, a grave new threat has recently emerged: the proposed establishment of dyeing units in the textile park in our area. The village of Jagir Ammapalayam, where the textile park is located, is a fertile agricultural region renowned for its thriving paddy cultivation. The destruction of these cultivable lands to set up dyeing units constitutes a grave threat that will ultimately devastate the livelihoods of local farmers. The setting up of dyeing units in this area will contaminate the groundwater within a fifteen-kilometer radius, severely affecting the livelihoods of people in many surrounding villages who depend entirely on agriculture.

At a larger scale, groundwater across nearly 400 villages will become toxic, leading to an acute shortage of safe drinking water. Wells that currently meet the community’s needs will become unfit for use, and humans, animals, and other living beings consuming this contaminated water will face serious health consequences.

Residents of this region have been continuously protesting, demanding that this environmentally harmful project proposed in the name of industrial development be abandoned. After all, the right to clean air, clean water, and a healthy environment is a fundamental right of all living beings, isn’t it?