Environmental activist C R Neelakantan has complained to six eminent personalities of the country including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Leader of Opposition Sushama Swaraj, Chief Vigilance Commissioner, Comptroller and Auditor General, UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi about the Bolgatty Island land deal which involves the Cochin Port Trust(CPT).
Neelakantan alleged “the violation of CRZ notification, misuse of powers vested with CPT, alienation of public land for considerably lower consideration, undervaluation, conspiracy for alienating public land for private purposes, and large scale corruption”, and urged the leaders to cancel the contract, which he says was signed between the CPT and the developer in an urgent manner, and take back possession of the public land for public purposes.
He also sought an inquiry into the alleged corruption involved in this deal and wants the culprits to be punished according to the law of the land.
Neelakantan also alleges that the reclamation of the 10 hectares of wetland in Vembanadu lake, which is a Ramsar site, by Cochin Port Trust in the year 2005-06, was illegal. He argues that the reclamation of wetland was said to be for “development of CPT for port related activities”, even though the filled land was far away from the Cochin Port facilities.
“They had no project or plan at the time of reclaiming. It was an intentional move to violate CRZ Notification and legalise it in the name of public purpose, for meeting some private interests”, he alleged in the petition.
Neelakantan further states, “in the name of financial crisis, it was decided to seek the approval of the Ministry of Shipping to tender out eight plots of land belonging to the CPT including the Island. The reason given was that these lands cannot be used for port development activity.”
“ The earlier claim of CPT for filling the wetland was that, it was for the port related activity. Soon after filling the wetland for so called ‘port related activity’, the CPT declared the land as ‘unfit for the port related activity’ they had planned”.
