Here is a couple of articles from newstodaynet.com.
The first article questions why the Emergency Control Center in Kalpakkam was not used after the Tsunami.
The second article is about an exculsive colony in Ammaipakkam, that has 130 unoccupied dwellings not beign allocated to the 670 families displaced by the tsunami. Tsunami was no emergency in Kalpakkam?
- G BABU JAYAKUMAR, newstodaynet.com
Two weeks after the tsunami killed 37 residents of the Atomic Energy township in Kalpakkam and displaced 670 families out of their dwelling, two questions are being asked in hushed tones by some employees of the nuclear establishment: One, do we really have the expertise and wherewithal to handle an emergency caused by, say a nuclear accident? Two, for what do we maintain the Emergency Control Centre?
The Emergency Control Centre is a two-storeyed concrete building inside the Environment Safety Lab compound in the township that has about 5,000 housing quarters for all levels of personnel employed in the various nuclear establishments in Kalpakkam. Though water gushed into the premises and damaged houses close to the beach, the area where the Emergency Control Centre is located was not visited by the intruding waters.
Yet, the Emergency Control Centre remained closed on 26 December and the days that followed, though it was an 'emergency' situation that required 'control', too. Though not all those living in the township, atomic energy employees included, are not aware of the existence of the Centre, for media personnel, who had covered the mock drills organised periodically to test the establishment's preparedness to deal with any emergency situation in its nuclear plants, it is a familiar building.
The building has a wide range of facilities like a slew of wireless sets, hotlines to the district collector, police and revenue officers and other first aid facilities like stretchers and so on. That the building that normally buzzed with hectic activity during the mock emergency drills, wore a desolate look when a real emergency gripped the people of the township, has made many wonder if any real emergency control system is in place at Kalpakkam.
As some survivors of the tsunami point out, the emergency centre was not opened even for accommodating the patients admitted to the township hospital, into which too water gushed in, forcing many to run out holding aloft saline bottles in their hands. Pregnant ladies too were shifted to other hospitals and the Emergency Control Centre provided shelter for none, leave alone waking up to handle the crisis situation.
Built some time in the early 1990s, at a cost running to several lakhs of rupees even then, the centre was conceived as a hub that will coordinate evacuation of villages in and around Kalpakkam in the event of a radiation leak or any such emergency. It was situated inside the township and not within the high-security high-rise compound walls around the various establishments because its purpose was to reach out to the people, those in the various villages, besides the township.
Now that the people of the township had watched with dismay the inaction of centre during the tsunami they are sceptical if the centre will be able to handle an emergency rising out of a radiation. In fact, the people themselves perceive the tsunami cataclysm as something much higher in scale than a possible nuclear accident.
Even otherwise, Kalpakkam is repeatedly facing natural calamities almost every five years. In 1985, a cyclone wreaked havoc in the area and the link between Sadras and Puthupatinam (the ends of the township) was cut off. In 1998, floods were caused in the area due to another cyclone. In 2002, tremors that rocked Pondicherry were felt in Kalpakkam, causing panic. In 2004, the tsunami struck.
So, if the emergency control centre cannot be opened even for a tsunami, for what will it be?
A fission causes heartburn in Kalpakkam
- G BABU JAYAKUMAR, newstodaynet.com
Charity does not seem to happen even within the nuclear establishment as the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) refuses to fully open the doors of an exclusive colony, which has about 130 unoccupied dwellings, to accommodate at least some of the 670 families displaced by the tsunami in Kalpakkam.
What has been simmering for years as a discontent over the nuclear establishment keeping the high-walled Ammaipakkam colony, built for employees of one of its facility, out of bounds for other DAE employees has now exploded into rancour since only 20 flats were offered on double sharing basis for families that had to move out of their quarters in the main township after the surging waves of 26 December entered their houses and made them uninhabitable.
Of the 670 families that have moved out from their houses along the Kalpakkam coast in the main township that has about 5000 quarters, a few have been given houses in Annupuram, a second colony developed by the DAE on other side of the East Coast Road, adjacent to Ammaipakam.
Some other families are sharing flats and houses with colleagues and friends, while many others have moved away to nearby towns like Chengalpattu, Thirukazhukundram, Kanchipuram and to Chennai and its suburbs. But then, Annupuram is a smaller township with 770 dwellings and its residents are still dependent on the main township for many facilities like hospital, shopping complex, schools and so on.
Yet the Ammaipakkam colony is still out of bounds for DAE employees, rues an engineer, adding that the vacant houses and flats there are in a state of disuse. Still the director of the scientific facility for whose employees the colony was developed refuses to budge to the demands by the honchos of the nuclear establishment and the employees unions.
'What is so exclusive about the colony?', ask many harried DAE employees. 'Why should its gates be closed on our face when we too belong to the same department'? In fact, the colony has a swimming pool and other playgrounds, for which, too, access has been repeatedly denied for the children of DAE employees. According to some sources, the swimming pool is maintained by paying an amount to a contractor, whose workers bathe in it just to prevent moss gathering in the water.
However, as an employee points out, those residing in Ammaipakkam regularly use the facilities available in Annupuram, with which it shares a high-rise wall, and also in the main township like schools, hospital and free bus service.
Other DAE employees, despite resenting the attitude of the director in stonewalling all moves to share of the Ammaipakkam colony facilities with those residing in Annupuram and the main township, were keeping quite all these years, but now express resentment openly. Mainly because the scientific community in Kalpakkam on the whole is facing a crisis situation and expects the director to at least allow their displaced colleagues to live in the vacant houses until their dwellings are repaired or more houses are built in Annupuram.
Since there are about 7000 employees in the various units, laboratories and facilities of the DAE, keeping 130 houses vacant for no known reason is seen as a waste of public money. Besides, the authority of the director to hold on to the keys of the vacant houses that might face dilapidation due to disuse is also being questioned. The biggest question however is: Who can make the director see reason and realise that it is unfair not to share the colony with other DAE employees?