Vellakalpatti Residents Confront Salem Mayor Over Waste-to-Energy Plant, Demand Cancellation
Villagers in and around Vellakalpatti picketed Salem Mayor A. Ramachandran and a team of councillors on Tuesday (September 29) when they arrived to inspect the land earmarked for a proposed waste-to-energy project.
The Mayor and councillors from the DMK and the VCK had gone to the village for the land inspection. Residents, who had come to know of the visit, raised slogans against the project and later questioned the Mayor and the councillors about the plan.
Addressing their concerns, the Mayor said the proposal to establish the waste-to-energy project had been rejected at the council meeting. He said the project was announced in the Tamil Nadu Assembly by Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay under Rule 110. The Mayor assured the villagers that he would not allow the project to proceed and said he would take all steps available, including meeting the Tamil Nadu Governor, to stop it.
"I am also ready to stage a hunger strike against this project," he said.
The Mayor said that over the past four-and-a-half years, all resolutions passed in the council meeting had been sent to the government by the Corporation Commissioner. He added that when the Mayor and councillors learnt that the present Corporation Commissioner had not been forwarding the resolutions, they staged a sit-in protest.
The councillors accompanying the Mayor told the villagers that if the project is not cancelled within three days, they would stage an indefinite hunger strike.
The villagers said preliminary work for the project began in 2025, but the Corporation did not act at the time. They said no official from the Corporation or the department concerned had asked for the opinion of residents on the project.
"Setting up the plant on land that is just three kilometres away from Salem city will affect the land, air and water," they said, adding that the project should be cancelled and that the government should look into the matter.
Waste-to-energy plants burn or process municipal solid waste to generate electricity. Proponents describe them as a way to manage rising volumes of urban waste and to reduce the land used for landfills. Critics point to emissions from such plants, the need for waste to be segregated before it is processed, and possible effects on air, water and soil in surrounding areas. In India, projects of this kind are subject to environmental clearance rules, under which certain categories of projects require public consultation before approval.
Under the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016, urban local bodies are required to ensure segregation of waste at source and to process biodegradable waste before disposal. Waste-to-energy plants generally depend on waste that has been segregated and dried, a requirement that critics say is often not met in practice.
The Vellakalpatti residents' objection centres on the absence of such consultation and on the location of the site, close to the city. Their demand is that the project be dropped and the matter examined by the government.
The councillors' three-day ultimatum and the Mayor's stated plan to approach the Governor indicate that the dispute is set to continue beyond the inspection visit. This report does not carry a response from the Corporation Commissioner or the State government to the grievances raised by the villagers or by the councillors.
