Encroachments destroying Kerala's Munnar, says report
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:While the row over the Assembly Committee report that recommended a demolition drive in Munnar is still flaring, the Land Revenue Commissioner (LRC) has submitted a report to the government which says the situation in Munnar is very serious. Unauthorised construction and encroachments are destroying the area, it says.
The report also calls for urgent takeover of the illegal cardamom plantations. The LRC says the local political leadership is not allowing the Revenue authorities to examine the bogus title deeds.
The majority of encroachments has been reported in the Kannan Devan Hills and Chinnakanal areas. The illegal constructions in the cardamom plantations, which have the same character of forest land, are posing a grave threat to the environment.
The report also calls for urgently increasing the strength of the land protection force formed for preventing encroachment and to take over the encroached land.
The LRC report will be discussed on Monday. Revenue Minister E Chandrasekharan said steps should be taken to protect government land. Mullakkara Ratnakaran, who headed a legislative committee which conducted several sittings in Munnar and a filed a report asking the government to ban high-rises and stop giving permits for construction of buildings for six months, backed the LRC’s findings.
Asked about the LRC’s report, he said during the sittings of the committee several people belonging to the lower strata of society had complained that the real beneficiaries of certain struggles were plantation owners and encroachers. “The poor farmers and the common man in Munnar have little sympathy for certain agitations. They told the legislative committee that some of the agitations had selfish motives,” he said.
Referring to the committee’s report asking the government to initiate action to take over the encroached land and ban illegal constructions, he said several rules applicable in other parts of the state could not be implemented in Munnar as the environment there is too fragile. ‘’Here, we cannot allow high-rises. The waste management at a place where the temperature is 35 degrees Centigrade will not be suitable for Munnar,” he said.