Between 1983 and 2001, the Plantation Corporation of Kerala (PCK) sprayed about 57,560 litres of endosulfan—a highly toxic organochlorine pesticide—across its cashew and rubber plantations. Due to sustained public resistance, spraying was halted in 2001, leaving the corporation with a stockpile of endosulfan. What happened to the stockpile?
This article follows what happened to that stockpile—from a security guard’s 2013 confession of illegal dumping in the Western Ghats, through years of weak official action and flawed testing, to an activist’s case before the National Green Tribunal and its October 2025 order holding the Plantation Corporation of Kerala to account
In June 2013, Achuta Maniyani, a security guard employed by the Plantation Corporation of Kerala (PCK), revealed that he had dumped an unused stockpile of endosulfan barrels into open wells in the Minchinapadavu Hillocks acting on instructions from PCK officials. The hillocks are located close to the Kerala–Karnataka border, near Nettanige–Mudnur gram panchayat in Puttur Taluk of Dakshina Kannada district.
About Endosulfan
Endosulfan is a highly toxic organochlorine insecticide originally developed by Bayer (Germany). It was mass-produced by Makhteshim Agan of Israel—later rebranded as ADAMA Agricultural Solutions— and in India by Hindustan Insecticides Limited (HIL), a Government of India enterprise under the Ministry of Chemicals & Fertilizers.
Classified as a Persistent Organic Pollutant (POP), endosulfan bioaccumulates in soil and groundwater, persisting for years. Long-term exposure—particularly through contaminated drinking water—has been linked to cerebral palsy, autism, reproductive disorders, congenital abnormalities, endocrine disruption, and developmental delays.
The U.S. EPA banned endosulfan in 2010. The Supreme Court of India banned it in 2011, the same year it was added to the Stockholm Convention as a banned POP.
Under the Stockholm Convention, India was required to identify and safely dispose of obsolete endosulfan stock through high-temperature incineration—obligations that were minimally fulfilled, if at all.
The Plantation Corporation of Kerala (PCK), a state-owned public sector enterprise, initiated aerial spraying of endosulfan across its cashew estates since the late 1970s in the Kasaragod district of Kerala and later in the adjoining districts of Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, and Uttara Kannada in Karnataka.
What followed was a cascade of entirely preventable suffering and death. By the 1980s—within a decade of spraying—the first visible signs appeared as deformities in cattle grazing beneath the flight paths.
By the 1990s, the human toll became undeniable: widespread congenital deformities and chronic illnesses were documented in villages exposed to aerial endosulfan spraying.
Children were born with severe physical abnormalities; survivors developed debilitating neurological conditions including epilepsy, cerebral palsy, and progressive memory loss.
Across affected communities, clusters of cancer, asthma, and severe mental-health disorders emerged, touching nearly every household.
Faced with mounting scientific evidence and massive public resistance from affected communities, PCK finally stopped aerial spraying of endosulfan in 2001. Citizen action through the courts soon followed. In response to sustained public-interest litigation, the Kerala High Court imposed a ban on endosulfan within the state in 2002, and in 2011, the Supreme Court—acting on citizen petitions—extended this prohibition nationwide, banning the production, sale, and use of the pesticide across India.
But the ban did not end the danger. After the nationwide prohibition, large quantities of endosulfan stocks remained with both PCK and the manufacturers. The Supreme Court permitted manufacturers to export their remaining stocks to other countries. Meanwhile, PCK’s stock lay stored in estate godowns for several years and was later illegally and dangerously dumped into open wells, as revealed by a PCK security guard acting under official instructions.
In 2013, after learning about the dumping of endosulfan on the Minchinapadavu hillocks, Dr. Ravindranath Shanbhag of the Human Rights Protection Foundation (HRPF) visited the site and repeatedly urged authorities to trace the missing barrels and ensure their safe disposal. He also produced an audio recording of a Plantation Corporation of Kerala security guard confessing that the dumping had been carried out on official instructions.
Who is Dr. Ravindranath Shanbhag?
Dr. Ravindranath Shanbhag, founder of the Human Rights Protection Foundation (HRPF), Udupi, has been one of the earliest and most persistent voices demanding justice for endosulfan victims.
HRPF’s work on endosulfan began in the 1990s and continues to this day.
The organisation played a central role in securing the endosulfan ban in Kerala, followed by a nationwide ban through the Supreme Court.
HRPF also won compensation orders in the Karnataka High Court, ensuring disability assessments and monthly pensions of ₹2,000 and ₹4,000 for victims with over 25% and 60% disability respectively.
After years of government inaction, Dr. Shanbhag filed OA 186/2023 (SZ) before the NGT, seeking the safe recovery of illegally dumped endosulfan from the open wells of the Minchinapadavu Hillocks in Kerala.
HRPF’s work on endosulfan has been extensively documented on their website:
https://udupihrpf.org/endosulphan-tragedy
.
As reported by Dr. Shanbhag, 130 victims were identified in Nettanige–Mudnur, Padvannur, and Badagannur villages of Puttur Taluk—areas where no aerial spraying had taken place—clearly pointing to groundwater contamination of drinking water sources through illegal dumping. Our hydrological analysis indicates that toxic endosulfan from the Minchinapadavu dumping site, as well as other as-yet-unidentified locations in the area, may have migrated into the Payaswini and Shiriya river through subsurface flows.
Despite the dangerous dumping and public outcry, the Governments of Karnataka and Kerala, as well as the Union Government, failed to act. The illegal dumping sites remained unaddressed, the buried cans were not recovered, and the remaining stocks continued to pose a serious and ongoing risk to communities.
Finally, in 2023, Dr. Ravindranath Shanbhag was compelled to seek judicial intervention and filed Original Application No. 186 of 2023 before the National Green Tribunal, Southern Zone, seeking urgent directions to the State of Kerala for the safe and scientific extraction of endosulfan cans dumped into wells at the Minchinapadavu hillocks and other locations.
Pursuant to the NGT’s directions, the CPCB conducted a spot inspection of PCK estates on 28 Dec 2023
CPCB submitted its spot inspection report to the NGT in January 2024. Key findings include:
Key Findings of CPCB Spot Inspection Report (dated Jan 2024)
Kerala: Missing Records & Clandestine Dumping
57.56 KL of endosulfan consumed (1983–2001), expected to produce 278 used barrels.
PCK could show only 20 empty barrels; the rest remain untraced.
Unused stock in Estates: 700 L (Kasaragod), 450 L (Rajapuram), 10 kg solid (Cheemeni), 304 L (Mannarghat).
PCK provided no disposal records for missing barrels.
Residents reported dumping into a 70-ft open wells; CPCB found 5/32 wells sealed — dumping “cannot be ignored”.
Kerala reports ~6,600 victims in Kasaragod.
Karnataka: No Records, No Answers
Endosulfan used in Dakshina Kannada, Uttara Kannada, and Udupi.
The Health & Family Welfare Department provided no details on disposal of empty barrels or remaining stockpiles.
4,728 victims in Dakshina Kannada, including 364 deaths.
Officials withheld data for Udupi and Uttara Kannada “despite having the records”.
Subsequently, the CPCB filed its analysis reports for the samples collected during the spot inspection. The results came back as “Below Detection Limit” (BDL), appearing to show no contamination. However, in a sworn affidavit, the CPCB admitted a critical failure: their instruments were simply not sensitive enough to detect toxicity at levels that are legally considered unsafe.
CPCB stated: “Analysis of all future sample is required to be performed using the instruments/methods having lower detection limits of Endosulfan in water (0.4µg/L)… so as to conclusively ascertain the presence of Endosulfan if any.”
The Flaw in Detection
📉 The Bengaluru Lab’s Limit: The CPCB laboratory could detect endosulfan only if levels exceeded 0.01 mg/L (10 µg/L).
🛑 The Safety Standard: The permissible limit for endosulfan in drinking water is 0.4 µg/L.
⚠️ The Blind Spot: This means the lab could detect contamination only when it was 25 times higher than the safety threshold.
🚨 The Consequence: Any contamination between 0.4 µg/L (unsafe) and 10 µg/L (detectable) would be missed entirely—effectively declaring toxic water “safe” due to equipment incapacity.
Now, the Kerala Pollution Control Board submitted to the Tribunal that they had been testing for endosulfan for the past 10 years and had ‘not found any.’ Yet, unlike the CPCB, their sample analysis reports are neither public nor available on the NGT website—making independent verification impossible.
This opacity raises a critical question regarding their testing methods and detection limits. If the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB)—the premier environmental agency in the country—admitted that its regional laboratory in Bengaluru lacked the sensitive, high-end equipment needed to detect toxicity at legally unsafe levels (0.4 µg/L), is it plausible that the Kerala State Board has been sitting on superior, ultra-sensitive technology for a decade? Or have they, too, been using inadequate instruments to churn out ‘clean’ reports for ten years?”
While the critical analysis with sensitive instruments remains pending, the CPCB reportedly traced additional barrels, bringing the total recovered to 69 out of the estimated 278 used barrels. The Board recommended incineration of recovered items.
However, unsatisfied with the piecemeal recovery and the inconclusive, insensitive testing reports, the National Green Tribunal (Southern Zone) issued a decisive order on 29 October 2025. It directed M/s. Plantation Corporation of Kerala (PCK) to conduct a thorough, joint examination of all previous findings—including reports from the Kerala State Government, Kerala SPCB, and CPCB—alongside the objections raised by the applicant. Box:Tribunal’s Directions to PCK.
The Tribunal mandated PCK to submit a comprehensive new report addressing three critical points. See ‘Tribunal’s Directions to PCK‘
Tribunal’s Directions to PCK
📦 The Missing Barrels: Account for the fate of all 278 original endosulfan barrels, clarifying exactly how many remain untraced beyond the 69 already recovered.
🌊 Environmental Damage: Document soil and water contamination caused by endosulfan— implicitly requiring the use of high-sensitivity equipment capable of detecting toxicity at legal safety thresholds.
🧹 Remedial Action: Propose and implement remedial measures to clean up existing contamination and prevent further leaching into surrounding ecosystems and aquifers.
💰 Cost of Clean-up: All costs for this investigation and subsequent remediation shall be borne entirely by PCK.
The official torpor, apathy, and inaction displayed in this case—particularly by governments and pollution control boards—are neither new nor accidental. The Bhopal gas tragedy offers a stark precedent. For over four decades, Union Carbide’s toxic waste remained within the factory premises, continuously contaminating groundwater and sickening successive generations. The affected community fought relentlessly for its removal for nearly forty years. It took sustained citizen pressure and judicial intervention before the toxic waste was finally incinerated this year.
A similar pattern is evident in the conduct of Hindustan Insecticides Limited (HIL)—a Government of India enterprise under the Ministry of Chemicals & Fertilizers—which manufactured endosulfan, DDT, and dicofol. For years, HIL stored endosulfan-laden solid waste in unlined lagoons within its Eloor factory premises, barely 300–500 metres from the Periyar River, allowing toxic leachate to percolate unchecked into the ecosystem. (See Box: HIL’s Gross Negligence in Handling Hazardous Endosulfan Waste.)
☠️ Hindustan Insecticides Limited (HIL): Gross Negligence in Handling Hazardous Endosulfan Waste
HIL began producing endosulfan at its Kochi plant in Kerala in 1980, manufacturing approximately 1,600 tonnes.
By 1999 and 2002, Greenpeace investigations had already documented severe contamination of the Periyar River with endosulfan discharged from the HIL factory via Kuzhikandam Thodu and Unthi Thodu.
In 2002, the Government of Kerala banned the use of endosulfan within the state—yet HIL continued manufacturing and exporting the pesticide to other states.
The Kerala Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) has recorded that HIL had been dumping chemical residues inside its factory premises since 2006.
In 2010, KSPCB inspections discovered pesticide-laden sludge containing endosulfan and DDT dumped into unlined lagoons within the Kochi factory compound.
In 2011, finding the toxic sludge still unmoved, KSPCB Chairman K. Sajeevan stated that HIL had taken no “adequate or earnest measures” to remove the waste despite repeated warnings.
In 2012, even after the Supreme Court imposed a nationwide ban on the production, distribution, and use of endosulfan, the toxic sludge at the Kochi site remained, leaching into soil and connected waterways. Water-quality tests confirmed measurable endosulfan residues in the Periyar River.
This is not bureaucratic incompetence—it is an architecture of regulatory failure: systematic, deliberate, and structured to protect polluters while externalising harm to communities. A Bench of the Karnataka High Court, headed by Chief Justice D. H. Waghela, captured this reality when it described the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board as “a complete failure” and “totally dysfunctional,” observing that it had been “in deep slumber for 30 years—surpassing even Kumbhakarna.” This indictment applies not to one board alone, but to the wider ecosystem of environmental governance in India.
The recent regulatory amendments exempting Environmental Clearance (EC) for landfills and waste-to-energy (WTE) facilities expose this governance architecture with alarming clarity. The exemption rests on a demonstrably false scientific premise—that landfills and WTE plants do not generate hazardous or infectious waste. By embedding this fiction into regulation, hazardous waste has been administratively recast as benign.
As India rapidly expands landfills and WTE facilities under these diluted safeguards, toxic residues will inevitably leach into soil and aquifers. Detection will be weakened by inadequate monitoring standards. Official reports will certify sites as “safe.” And by the time courts intervene—if they intervene at all—contamination will have already spread across regions, poisoning generations.
It is therefore no coincidence that India now records among the highest toxic exposure burdens in the world, as reflected in the Yale Environmental Performance Index (EPI), even as it continues to import pesticides long banned in Europe. This is not merely a collapse of the precautionary principle or a failure of intergenerational equity. It is a betrayal of democracy itself—where regulatory institutions no longer protect citizens and environment from harm but instead shield polluters from accountability.
