india

Updated: Feb 03, 2019 17:36 IST

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Sunday called victims of endosulfan pesticide for talks after they took out a march to his residence over his silence on their demand that congenitally deformed children be included in the list for financial assistance.

“He has promised to widen the list and include all affected in the package. So we are suspending our fast now,” said convener of the endosulfan action committee A Kunjikrishnan. The CM’s office also released a statement saying the government will consider their demands favourably.

The government’s climbdown came six days after victims of endosulfan pesticide including many with a dozen deformed children pitched camp outside the secretariat demanding that the government include the children as well in the list for financial assistance.

A day earlier, Kerala Health Minister K K Shailaja had drawn fire for her comment that it was not right for endosulfan victims to “exhibit” their children, suffering the effects of the deadly pesticide, in front of the secretariat. Activists said her comments were “shocking and cold hearted”.

The minister’s comment came after parents with a dozen congenitally deformed children continued to camp outside the secretariat demanding that the government include the children as well in the list for financial assistance.

“It was really shocking. The minister is also a mother. She lacks conscience and is cold-hearted,” said activist Daya Bhai who had been on a hunger strike in support of the children.

Protesters said when they conducted a similar agitation in 2016 the minister, then in the opposition, took part in it and she did not feel these children were “exhibits” then.

“It is sad sick children were being used and exhibited as showpieces by those leading the hunger strike before the secretariat,” Shailaja had said, claiming that most of the demands were accepted by the government. But protestors say the minister skirted real issues.

“We need revision of the guidelines. As per the government list only 287 people are eligible for medical and financial assistance. It is turning a blind eye to the fact that there are 1900 people affected by the pesticide,” said Endosulfan Peeditha Janakiya Munnani leader Muneesa Ambalathara. What really angered agitators was the statement of the Health Minister K K Shylaja who said some forces were “exhibiting sick children.”

The scourge of endosulfan began in the 1970s in north Kerala’s Kasargode district when Plantation Corporation, a state PSU started aerial spraying of the pesticide in cashew farms. It continued for more than two and a half decades. The extensive use of the pesticide triggered cancer, congenital deformity and spastic cases in villages bordering cashew farms leading to the Kerala High Court banning the spraying in 2002.

Experts say endosulfan is not easily degradable and contaminated soil and water in many villages and still many new-borns in the area are still affected by some malady or the other. The [protesters claim there are 2000 affected people in 15 villages of the district. After the intervention of the National Human Rights Commission in 2013 the Kerala government had announced a package for the affected people.

But some of the agitating parents say their cases were excluded and many ineligible people got into the list.

In 2011 the Supreme Court banned the production and sale of endosulfan after the CPI (M)’s youth wing, the Democratic Youth Federation of India moved a public interest litigation (PIL) to ban the toxic pesticide.