THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:The Pampa River Action Plan will be reviewed and a fresh draft plan will be prepared in one month.
A decision in this regard was taken at the stakeholders’ workshop on ‘Rejuvenation of Holy River Pampa and Pampa River Plan’ organised under the aegis of Centre for Water Resources Development and Management here on Saturday.
Summing up the outcome of the discussions, T K A Nair, former adviser to the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was the moderator at the workshop, said the draft plan could be prepared by May end.
A four-member committee will be entrusted with preparing the draft plan after reviewing the action plan.
He said the draft plan could be further discussed at another meeting to be held here before being handed over to the government.
He requested experts from the CWRDM, NGOs and other agencies to come forward to present their specific views. Pampa Parirakshana Samiti director N K Sukumaran Nair said that though the efforts at preparing Pampa Action Plan had begun in 1995 nothing had progressed in rejuvenating the river. Dumping of discarded clothes by Ayyappa devotees, draining of sewage waste into the river as well as dumping of poultry waste, unrestrained sand mining and encroachment on the tributaries of Pampa had been killing the river. State Biodiversity Board chairman Oommen V Oommen said that under the Biodiversity Act passed by Parliament, the administrative committees of the local bodies were bound to constitute Biodiversity Management Committees in all local bodies. He said the BMCs should be sensitised.
However, local body representatives from panchayats through which the river Pampa flows, complained that ever since the Biodiversity Act came into force, the local bodies had lost the power to evict encroachers from the river banks and sand mining mafia were using puramboke land to carry out illegal activities. They said that such land could be developed as bioparks and walkways. A Groundwater Authority official from Pathanamthitta said that a large number of bottling water companies were securing licences circumventing rules and then digging pipewells leading to the depletion of the groundwater table. Local body authorities from Kuttanad region who took part in the workshop, expressed concern about the new engineering structures in water bodies. They wanted more nature-friendly biofencing and natural river bank protection measures using native knowledge.
Participants at the workshop pointed out that near Aranmula and Chengannur the flow of Pampa had been reversed following unrestrained sand mining.
Many participants said that though there were 6500 small tributaries and feeder channels to Pampa, many of them had lost their connection with the river due to large-scale land reclamation and sand mining from the river. The farming activities on the river bank had also been contributing to the loss of the water quality. They urged steps like afforestation on the river banks. Micro-water planning and community water planning also have to be conducted.Perinad panchayat through which the river flows covering a length of 54 km, is faced with the problem of large-scale contamination of water during the Sabarimala season. The Devaswom Board has a role to restrict the contamination levels, it has been pointed out.
