The State government will address all issues raised by endosulfan victims, Minister for Social Welfare M.K. Muneer has said.

He was speaking to the media on Sunday after visiting women, all mothers of endosulfan victims, on the 94th day of their indefinite strike seeking speedy implementation of the assured relief and rehabilitation package. Interacting with the agitators, Dr. Muneer said the government was open to addressing their demands. He said the government had been lenient and empathetic to them.

Laying out a road map for a comprehensive and sustained relief and rehabilitation package, the two-day national workshop on endosulfan ended here on Sunday pledging to ensure individual, social, and economic uplift of hundreds of affected victims and their families and to rejuvenate the environmental and ecological aspects, degraded by over exposure to the “killer” pesticide.

The workshop, — CONCORD-12 (Consultative Workshop on Comprehensive Rehabilitation of Endosulfan Victims and Rejuvenation of Ecosystem in Kasaragod district) underscored the urgent need to speed up the ongoing relief and rehabilitation initiatives to mitigate the complex issues faced by the victims.

Equating the serious health hazards wrecked in the district due to the indiscriminate exposure of endosulfan pesticide for over two decades with that of the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy, acclaimed environmental activist Sunita Narain has said that the major task before the administration was to bring hopes and cheers back to the life of the hapless victims of the “killer” pesticide spraying.

“Assuaging the hurt feelings of the hundreds of victims of aerial spraying of the endosulfan pesticide in the state owned cashew estates in the district is the most important task before the administration and the State government and the local Member of Parliament had played critical role in partially assuaging the hurt feeling of the ill-fated victims and their families”, the Padmashree award winning environmentalist said.

After battling for life in abject deplorable condition, a five-year old victim of the “killer” endosulfan pesticide spraying in the district, passed away at his residence in Karadukka panchayat in the district, sources here said.

Mithun, son of Mohana-Pushpa couple, residing at Berla, had been afflicted with the physical retardation and under-growth and bed-ridden right from birth causing great deal of anguish and sorrow on those who chanced to see the plight of the boy.

Chief Minister Oommen Chandy will inaugurate a two-day national seminar ‘Concord - 2012’ (consultative workshop on comprehensive rehabilitation of endosulfan victims and rejuvenation of ecosystem in Kasaragod district) at the Chinmaya Tejus auditorium here at 10 a.m. on July 21.

The event would also be held at the collectorate conference hall and the district panchayat conference hall, P. Karunakaran, MP, told a press conference here on Wednesday. The event would focus on the need to provide time bound relief to hundreds of victims and their families, Mr. Karunakaran, organising committee chairman said.

An indefinite relay hunger strike by mothers of the endosulfan victims entered the third day on Wednesday.

Protesters sought speedy implementation of the National Human Rights Commission suggested relief and rehabilitation package for the families of victims. The agitation, spearheaded by the Endosulfan Satyagraha Samithi, began on Monday to put pressure on the administration to take swift measures to implement the rehabilitation package, samithi convener Ambalathara Kunhikrishnan said. The samithi was on an indefinite relay strike from April 20.

The Endosulfan Satyagraha Samiti will organise a relay hunger strike from June 25 as part of intensifying its agitation against delay in providing relief to victims.

The recent decision of the State government to disburse relief in tune with the recommendations of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) lacked clarity, the samiti said in a statement issued here on Sunday.“We have decided to intensify the two-month-old strike by resorting to a relay hunger strike in protest against the undue delay in implementing the comprehensive rehabilitation package,” samiti convener Ambalathara Kunhi Krishnan said