Endosulfan victims end agitation after CM concedes demands

Thiruvananthapuram: The Endosulfan Peeditha Janakiya Munnani, mostly made up of mothers of endosulfan-affected children, called off its five-day agitation in front of the Secretariat on Sunday.

“Favourable decisions were taken during our meeting with the chief minister today,” a beaming Muneesa, one of the leaders of the agitation, said. "We were told that 500 more children would be included in the list of the affected without insisting on panchayat borders. (Government guidelines had limited the beneficiaries to 15 panchayats that were subjected to aerial spraying by the Plantation Corporation of India). We were also told that children who were not included in the list would be examined once again. It was also assured that more camps would be conducted for those who were unable to attend the earlier ones because of hartals and other hurdles,” said Muneesa after the meeting with chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan at his official residence Cliff House.

Muneesa, who is also a victim, is blind but is not in the list of the affected. She and other leaders announced that the Munnani was ending its Secretariat agitation in the light of the "favourable decisions". The Chief Minister's Office said that the Kasaragod district collector had been instructed to re-evaluate the entire beneficiary list.

Two days earlier, the agitators had held a meeting with health and social justice minister K K Shylaja and revenue minister E Chandrasekharan. Then, the ministers were not willing to revise the list and the talks had broken down.

Shylaja had even criticised what she termed the "public parade of pesticide-struck children".

The indefinite stir was scaled up on Sunday with the agitators taking out a march to Cliff House.

The sight of suffering children and their mothers marching to the Secretariat had forced the government to call the protestors for yet another round of talks.

Expanding the list of the endosulfan-affected was the major demand posed by the agitators. An expert team had drawn up a list of 1,905 victims. But this got whittled down to 287. Fact is, 6,800 people had applied to attend a medical camp for endosulfan victims. Only 3,888 could be examined. It was from this that 1,905 was shortlisted. Just about 15 per cent of this number, 287, eventually made it to the final list.

The beneficiary list was drawn up after the Supreme Court had issued an order in January, 2017, saying that all victims should be compensated. The apex court had fixed Rs 5 lakh as the compensation to the families of victims who had died.

The state government, on its part, has already been providing monthly pensions of Rs 2,200, Rs 1,700, and Rs 1,200 to another 4,376 victims. A monthly allowance is also being paid for those caring for bedridden and mentally-challenged victims. Then, there are annual scholarships of up to Rs 4,000 for studies up to higher secondary level. Further, the state had also written to the Centre to share at least half the Rs 483 crore required for the rehabilitation of endosulfan victims.