VADODARA, July 13: Even as relief work at the Saurashtra Society, along the broken wall of the Gujarat State Fertiliser and Chemical Limited in Bajwa town, slowed down due to rains after completion of well over half the work, company officials and a delegation of villagers led by the Vadodara Pradushan Nivaran Samiti and the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti clashed at a meeting on Monday.While the Samitis renewed their demand to remove the 40 lakh metric tonne waste mountain permanently, the officials wished to restrict the discussion only to relief works. The meeting remained inconclusive with the delegation walking out in a huff.
A delegation led by Nilesh Patel and Rohit Prajapati of the two Samitis met GSFC officials at the latter's behest at 2.30 pm, where an official also reportedly scolded them asserting that work was moving at the right pace and could not be accelerated. This was when the delegation opined that the cleaning up and wall construction should have continued round-the-cloud.
The delegation members, who were also joined by Kirit Bhatt of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), wondered that the relief work had yet not over eight days after the localities got flooded with hazardous waste mixed with muck. On this, one of the officials reportedly retorted stating the delegation members had no business to decide how the relief work should go on.
The company was represented by A K Ray, General Manager (Services), M J Vaidya, Additional General Manager, M P Pandya, Deputy General Manager, A T Trivedi, Chief Vigilance Officer and Navin Shah, Public Relations Officer.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
