Polluted Periyar water risking several lives: Sreenivasan.
KOCHI: Actor Sreenivasan on Friday said the polluted water of Periyar had put the lives of several people at risk.
Sreenivasan was speaking after receiving the Greenstorm Ecostar-2017 award constituted by the Organic BPS here.
Urging the authorities concerned to act, the actor said around 50 lakh people daily consumed the water pumped from Periyar.
Still, the Kerala Water Authority is sticking with the age-old chlorination method to purify the water,” he said.
“Several factories listed under the ‘Red’ category are operating on the river’s sides and polluting it.
These include factories manufacturing synthetic rutile which export the metal to Japan and Australia as the authorities there do not permit the production of synthetic rutile owing to its environmental hazards,” he said.
“The factories pump their waste into the river kiling several fishes,” he said.He said the attempts to stop the pollution of Periyar by an environmentalist did not succeed.
He urged people to collectively raise their voices on the issue.Speaker P Sreeramakrishnan said environment conservation was a part of democracy and the government had been stressing on water conservation.
Architect G Shankar, another awardee, said around 5 billion litres of water were flushed from toilets in Kerala.