THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: After the southwest monsoon and resultant floods threw normal life into disarray in August, the government came up with Nava Kerala, a vision to rebuild the state. But as things stand, there are no major proposals other than reconstructing damaged infrastructure. Experts say Kerala has to think of switching to a construction culture suited for the state rather than creating swanky individual houses with plinth area in the 2,000-3,000 sq ft range.
Speaking to Express, the Chief Minister's private secretary M V Jayarajan admitted Nava Kerala has no new major announcements. He said fresh proposals and announcements will be made after putting the state back to normalcy.
A senior bureaucrat privy to the government's economic and administrative affairs said the state's immediate priority was to rebuild roads, bridges, water supply channels, sewerage, power and tourism infrastructure, which are all essential. The government has also begun steps to come up with a building rule suited for the vulnerable high-range areas and flood plains.
"The state needs 75-80 lakh houses in 38,863 sq km area and we can't afford our current construction culture with a high density of population — 860 persons per sq km. It is much higher than Tamil Nadu (555), Karnataka (319), Andhra Pradesh (308), and the national mark (382)," he said.
‘Reduce pressure on natural resources’
T’Puram: In a free-wheeling interview with Express, Muralee Thummarukudy, disaster management expert and chief of Disaster Mitigation and Operations at the United Nations Environment Programme, shared his vision to rebuild the state by reducing the pressure on natural resources, changing the urban land usage and adopting new building practices suitable for the state which will also lead to an inevitable cultural and livelihood shift.