Press Release, May 29 2016
In a major accident in the Turamdih uranium mine near Jadugoda in Jharkhand, 3 workers died on 28th May. While few workers are reportedly still trapped inside the mine, 10 severely injured workers have been admitted to the Tata Main Hospital.
We are shocked by the accident causing such huge loss and stand with the families and friends of the affected in their moment of grief. We support the demand of the workers and the local community that an independent probe into the accident must be initiated, and the deceased and injured must be immediately and duly compensated.
This accident raises some serious concerns which the local community and the larger civil society has been voicing for decades. The Uranium Corporation of India Limited(UCIL) functions in complete non-transparency and unaccountability. To cut costs, it compromises with safety measures and employs contractual workers routinely in dangerous work in brazen violation of standard norms.
The criminal negligence and contempt for the surrounding population, which is mostly Adivasi and poor, is shocking. Toxic and radioactive waste is left in open tailing dams and uranium ore is transported in open vehicles. A number of peer-reviewed studies have shown high incidence of radiation-borne diseases in the area. India’s present nuclear regulator, the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board(AERB) is entirely unequipped and ineffective owing to its non-independence.
We demand that the govt must put a moratorium on expanding the uranium mines and initiate an independent enquiry into safety and radiation affects in Jharkhand, involving environmental experts, labour unions and the civil society.
For CNDP,
Achin Vanaik
Lalita Ramdas
Anil Chaudhary
Abey George
Kumar Sundaram
