Over 500 villagers block highway in Sivaganga demanding ban on 100-acre quarry

Over 500 residents from Jeyangondanilai and neighboring villages in Sivaganga district here on Tuesday staged a two-hour road blockade on the Eriyur–Melur highway, demanding an immediate ban on a proposed 100-acre private stone quarry.

Protesters cited devastating environmental degradation and a sharp rise in fatalities among endangered slender lorises as the primary reason for the demonstration.

Preparations to establish the stone quarry in Jeyangondanilai village near Singampunari have severely disrupted local wildlife corridors.

According to the protesters, quarrying activity has driven nocturnal slender lorises out of their natural habitats and into residential areas.

Displaced into nearby trees and streets, over five slender lorises have died within the past month alone due to vehicle accidents and stray dog attacks.

Further, the proposed quarry site directly borders crucial local waterbodies—including Siddhamalli, Nainarkulam, and Attoorani irrigation tanks —putting populations of deer, monitor lizards, and rabbits at severe risk.

Resistance to the quarry project has been building across multiple hamlets, including Jeyangondanilai, Krishnapuram, E. Malampatti, Mallakottai, and Siddhamallipatti.

Last year, local residents passed an official Grama Sabha resolution rejecting the project, and formal petitions were submitted to the Department of Geology and Mining, the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB), the District Collector, the Devakottai Sub-Collector, and the local Tahsildar.

Despite these efforts and appeals made directly to the District Collector last month, site preparation work continued.

They highlighted that several stone quarries have already been operating around villages like E. Malampatti, Mallakottai, V. Kallampatti, Periyakottai, and Odaipatti for years, causing daily blasting noise, structural cracks in homes, and severe air pollution.

Groundwater has also plunged so low in the existing quarry pits that villagers now have to drill borewells 700 to 1,000 feet deep to access drinking water.

The villagers warned that if the State authorities and the Minister for Minerals and Mines fail to conduct an on-site inspection and halt the quarry operations within one week, residents would surrender their family ration cards and launch a larger, region-wide protest.