Farmers revive stir against Salem-Chennai expressway

Coimbatore

Multiple groups of farmers staged protests on their farmlands by holding black flags condemning the Centre for being hell bent on implementing the project against the interest of farmers. The Centre has gone for an appeal against the High Court order seeking to scrap the project.

“We heaved a sigh of relief over the High Court’s order. When the entire nation is battling COVID-19 pandemic and facing economic crisis, the Centre has been showing haste in implementing the project by seeking early hearing for a project costing Rs 10,000 crore. What is the need to take up such a high cost project now? Instead the funds could be diverted to meet out the unavoidable medical expenses in containing the infection,” said Ravi Shankar, a farmer from Salem.

The peaceful protests by farmers entered into the third day on Sunday. “If the government doesn’t heed to our demands, then farmers will shift our place of protest from farm lands to the Collector office on a larger scale. We will definitely intensify our protests,” he added.

Farmers feared that their livelihood will be lost if their fertile farm lands are snatched away by the government for the road project. Farmers claimed that the Green Corridor Project will affect more than 15,000 acres of fertile farmlands and forests.

The road project is proposed to run through Salem, Dharmapuri, Krishnagiri, Tiruvannamalai and Kancheepuram districts.