The People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) on Saturday demanded that the Centre and state declare the emergency drill, conducted by the Tirunelveli administration on June 9 at Nakkaneri village, near Koodankulam nuclear power plant (KKNPP), as null and void.
PUCL national secretary V. Suresh told a press conference here that their fact-finding mission found that the district administration had failed to carry out the legally mandatory work in Nakkaneri.
Further, it issued a “false press statement” that the exercise had been conducted successfully though there was no public participation.
“The exercise performed for reactor 1 of KKNPP at Nakkaneri had not followed the stipulated guidelines of any nuclear regulatory agency around the world. The press note issued by the Tirunelveli collector, claiming to have adhered to the norms, is, indeed, a lie.
Moreover, the medical facility for 2 lakh people living inside the 16-km emergency planning zone is inadequate. In the event of a nuclear disaster, the existing infrastructure won’t be able to protect the people,” he added.
Following reports that countered the district administrations’ assertion, the PUCL fact-finding team visited the village. The villagers said they were not informed of the exercise and that “the officials spent a few hours in the village and left”, PUCL state secretary S. Balamurugan told DC.
Apart from declaring the emergency exercise as null and void, PUCL seeks a judicial enquiry.
People living in the 16-km radius of the plant must be educated and any future preparedness exercise should be fair and open. They want AERB to deny permission to load the first reactor till their recommendations are accepted.