Illegal razing of hills rampant in Pathanamthitta

Radhakrishnan Kuttoor, PATHANAMTHITTA,
The Hindu, March 3, 2016   

With the government machinery sliding into preparations for the forthcoming Assembly polls, unauthorised demolition of environmentally sensitive hills has become rampant in many parts of the district.

Functioning of the Police Department too has been reportedly slackened in the backdrop of the pre-election shifting of officials from their home districts, leaving ample room for law-breakers to unleash illegal hill demolition and paddy land conversion in the district.

All Kerala River Protection Council State vice-president V.N. Gopinath Pillai alleged that illegal land conversion was under way even at places where hill demolition had been stopped by courts earlier.

Mr. Pillai said the land lobby had started demolishing the nearly 250-metre tall Chuttipparakkunnu at Vallana, near here. The move to demolish the hill, projecting it as a site for an educational institution, was stalled by villagers two years ago.

The State Pollution Control Board had inspected the hill and submitted a report to the Revenue Divisional Officer at Adoor, highlighting the dangers posed by the hill demolition. The hill demolition was later stopped as college management clarified that it had no proposal to set up a college at Vallana.

Though the land lobby was trying to demolish the hill under the pretext providing earth for the ongoing rail doubling work on the Thiruvalla-Chengannur stretch, Railways had contracted a person to shift the earth removed from the Aranmula Puncha, Mr Pillai said.

Mylapra, Elanthoor

Elanthoor and Mylapra were two other places near the district headquarters where illegal hill demolition was taking at a fast pace, said Mr. Pillai.

Mr. Pillai said illegal hill demolition was rampant at Varyapuram and Kulackattukavu areas too.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) activists have forcibly stopped illegal demolition of hills at certain parts of Elanthoor the other day.

Mr. Pillai called upon the District Collector to take effective steps to check land conversions taking place in different parts of the district without any further delay.