Over 3.5 lakh children to be administered polio vaccine

An estimated 3.58 lakh children below the age of five would be administered oral polio vaccine at the Pulse Polio campaign to be held in Krishnagiri and Dharmapuri districts on February 19.

The vaccination would be done at 951 centres in Krishnagiri district, including 53 centres in urban areas such as Krishnagiri and Hosur Municipalities.

About 2 lakh children in the rural and urban areas would be covered during the campaign. Children of migrant parents would also be given the vaccine.

The vaccination would be administered at all primary health centres and government hospitals in the districts. Special camps would be set up at places of worship, tourist spots, railway stations, and bus stands. Ninety-three mobile teams would be deployed to administer the drops to children in remote areas.

The campaign would be conducted from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. As many as 3,804 government employees drawn from various departments apart from volunteers would carry out the campaign.

TNROA donates water purifier to school

The Tamil Nadu Revenue Officials' Association (TNROA) donated a water purifier to a Residential Bridge Course School at Jagir Venkatapuram Village, Kattikanapalli Panchayat in Krishnagiri taluk on Friday.

NGO

The water purifier, costing Rs. 7,500, was handed over to the NGO running the school through District Collector C.N. Maheshwaran.

The school was funded and monitored by the Department of Education.

The purifier was donated in the presence of association's district president P. Vijaraghavan, district treasurer P. Ramakrishnan, and vice-president Thirunavukkarasu on behalf of the district unit of the association.

Others who were present on the occasion were RDO R. Sathish, Krishangiri Tahsildhar V. Mani, and Coordinator, Block Resource Centre of SSA, Krishnagiri, Sampath, says a press release from TNROA.

Farmer trampled to death by wild elephants

Sixty five-year-old farmer M. Marappan alias Mallan from Pavadaipatti village near Royakottai in Krishnagiri district was trampled to death by a herd of seven elephants in the early hours on Thursday. This was the second death during this calendar. On January 1, C. Salamma (50) was killed by wild elephants when she went to the field in Sigaralapalli village near Shoolagiri.

M. Jayapal, elder son of the deceased and an eyewitness, told The Hindu that the incident took place at around 3.30 a.m. Mr. Jayapal was returned to his residence cum motor shed from his agriculture field after diverting water evenly to the cabbage crop at 2.30 a.m.

An hour after he went to sleep at the terrace, he heard a loud noise and woke up from the terrace and found that a herd of wild elephants were nearing his shed. Though, an elephant was trying to catch him, he escaped by hiding under the parapet wall of the first floor and raised alarm. Hearing the scream, the Marappan came out of the motor room without noticing the elephants in the dark. The elephants roaming nearby attacked him. He was thrown away for some distance by one of the elephant from the herd.

On hearing sound for help, the villagers and the forest officials rushed to the place and chased away the pachyderms inside the Udedurgam Reserve Forests.

Mr. Marappan was rushed to the Government Headquarter’s Hospital and succumbed to his injuries at around 6 a.m. An immediate relief a cheque for an amount of Rs. 25,000 was handed over to Ms. M. Maramma, wife of the deceased by the forest department.

The body of the deceased was handed over to the relatives after the post-mortem at the Government Headquarters’ Hospital in Krishnagiri.

Villagers were asked to switch on a light near the vicinity of their agriculture fields or the motor sheds to avoid wild animals nearing the places of lighting.

As a precautionary measure, the forest department has issued as many as 60 new power search lights during this fiscal to safeguard from the wild animals through Village Forest Committees.

Digging of moats for 59 km is on full swing, of this, the work on 30 km is over, in another fifteen days, work on the rest of the 29 km would be over.

13 bonded labourers rescued

Thirteen persons, including four children, who were engaged as bonded labourers in a brick kiln near Veppanahalli in Krishnagiri district were rescued on Tuesday.

Revenue Divisional Officer R. Sathish told the reporters that a team led by him, along with volunteers of the Bangalore-based International Justice Mission (IJM), raided the kiln and rescued the 13 persons belonging to three families.

The raid was on the basis of information provided by labourers rescued earlier from other places of work in the area.

The RDO said that Nagaraj, the owner of kilns at Balanapalli near Theertham in Veppanahalli block, had given a total of around Rs.2 lakh to the three families and engaged them for manufacturing raw bricks and related work.

They were paid weekly wages of Rs.200 to Rs.300.

The family members were not permitted to attend family functions or participate in festivals in their native Puliampatti village in Palacode Taluk.

They were made to toil from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., flouting the Tamil Nadu Minimum Wages Act and the Bonded Labourers System (Abolition) Act, the official said.

According to the Minimum Wages Act Act, one has to be paid a minimum of Rs.114 a day for eight hours' work.

Those rescued were E. Marappan (27), his wife M. Sarasu (26), sister-in-law M. Anandalakshmi (14), his children M. Dhanalakshmi (7), M. Suriya (6) and M. Prabhu (4), M. Sokkan (45), his wife S. Bairamma (35), S. Madhesh (35), S. Mahalakshmi (15), S. Siva (9) M. Govindaraj (46), P. Veerabadran (22) and his wife V. Madhavi (19).

The nine adults will be paid Rs.1000 as immediate compensation.

The district administration will request the government for Rs.20,000 more as compensation, Mr. Sathish said.

A case would be registered against the brick kiln owner under the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act.

Esther Daniel, director, Case Work in International Justice Mission (IJM) told The Hindu that the organisation would take steps to protect the rights of the rescued labourers.

Heavy police protection for rally

Heavy police protection was given for the rally and demonstration of HOSTIA demanding power holiday and uninterrupted power supply in Hosur on Tuesday. As many as 690 police personnel drawn from Armed Reserve Police, Law and Order from nearby Dharmapuri, Salem and Namakkal were mobilized for security duty. The Deputy Inspector General of Police, Salem Range Sanjay Kumar was in Hosur to oversee security arrangements.

The arrangements were coordinated by four Superintendents of Police Abishek Dixit (Krishnagiri), Amitkumar Singh (Dharmapuri), Ashwin M. Kotnis (Salem) and M. Sathiya Priya (Namakkal).

Besides these, two Additional Superintendents of Police S.R.Senthil Kumar (Krishnagiri) and P. Saravanan (Dharmapuri) and twenty-five Deputy Superintendents of Police, inspectors, sub inspectors and Armed Reserve Police personnel from all the four districts in the range were also involved in security arrangements.

An office bearer of HOSTIA told The Hindu that the DIG, SPs and the District Collector had a day-long discussion on Monday and gave permission to conduct rally from Veilankanni School on Thalli Road to TANGEDCO office on Royakottai Road avoiding National Highways.