Reacting to the ongoing controversy over biomedical waste from Kerala being dumped in patta lands in Tamil Nadu, TN state BJP president K Annamalai has threatened to organise trucks to take the waste back to Kerala if the DMK government does not take immediate action.
“The DMK government should immediately stop the conversion of Tamil Nadu’s border districts into a garbage dump for the state of Kerala. If similar incidents continue in the first week of January 2025, we will mobilise the public, load this biomedical waste and garbage into trucks and dump it in Kerala. I am informing the DMK government that I will also be in the first truck,” he said on December 17.
As TNM previously reported, bio-medical waste from Kerala was dumped in multiple locations in Tamil Nadu’s Tirunelveli district, but officials in both states dodged accountability. It is legally mandated for biomedical waste–generated during the diagnosis, treatment or immunisation of humans or animals—to be segregated at the point of generation in colour-coded bags and to be disposed of through methods such as incineration or autoclaving.
However, such waste was illegally dumped in farm lands and near ponds in Kodaganallur and Palavoor villages in Tirunelveli district. Medical documents including patient consent forms from the Regional Cancer Centre in Thiruvananthapuram and diet lists from a private hospital named Credence were found along with the biomedical waste dumped. Such incidents have been reported from various Tamil Nadu districts that share borders with Kerala for over a decade.
Accusing the DMK of “ceding Tamil Nadu’s rights” to state ruled by its allies, Annamalai said the state government, “has allowed the border districts of Kerala such as Kanyakumari, Tenkasi and Tirunelveli, to be turned into a garbage dump for the Communist government of Kerala.”