KOCHI: With the Coastal Regulation Zone Committee, chaired by District Collector, deciding to give permission for constructing homes, poor families living in the coastal belt can heave a sigh of relief.
As a first step in relaxing the norms, District Collector K Mohammed Y Safirulla gave permission to 208 families on Saturday. “At present, the committee gave permission to 208 applications to construct buildings. The remaining applications will be reviewed and will be given permission in a phased manner,” said the collector. The meeting was also attended by Environment Engineer Kali Arasan, Senior Town planning officer P R Usha Kumari, Assistant Conservator of Forest and local representatives.
The committee received 387 applications from the local bodies. Of 187 applications were for constructing houses under the Life Mission project. “The permission was given based on the Coastal Zone Regulation rule. Since more clarity is needed on 58 applications, they will be considered in the next sitting. A direction to the local bodies secretaries has been forwarded to submit all the relevant documents,” the collector added.
According to the district administration, Coastal Zone Regulation rule is applicable to 24 local bodies which also includes Kochi Corporation, Maradu, Tripunithura, North Paravur municipality areas and 20 panchayats. “There are files that have been pending for more than seven years. We are working on a project to complete the pendency of files by the first week of August,” Safirulla said.
Most numbers of applications were received from Chellanam area (61). Pallippuram residents submitted 50 applications. Applications were also received from Kuzhuppilly (42), Nayarambalam (36), Ezhikkara (34), Edavanakkad (30), Mulavukadu (24), Varappuzha (18), Chittattukara (16), Kadamakkudy (13), Kochi Corporation (11) , Vadakkekara (10), Chendamangalam (9), Kottuvally (9), Cheranalloor (5), Kumbalangi (4), Udayamperor (4) and Maradu (2).
However, the Kochi Corporation’s memorandum to the state government seeking a relaxation of CRZ norms is yet to materialise. The corporation move came after fishermen and other financially-backwards people complained about the legal hurdles faced by them for getting approval from the Kerala Coastal Zone Management Authority (KCZMA) for building plans. With the move, the corporation had planned to give exemption only to the buildings below 1,000 sq ft.