PALAKKAD,
April 28, 2014
Though it has been four years since the High Power
Committee headed by the Chief Secretary found that 85.21 acres of tribal
land was encroached upon at Attappady and sold to windmill companies,
action has not been initiated either against the officials who had
helped in fabricating the documents or those companies that are still in
possession of the land. In fact, power from these units is flowing to
the grid of the Kerala State Electricity Board at Attappady.
The
85.21 acres of land formed part of the 374.48 acres that Sarjan
Realities Limited, a subsidiary of Suzlon, had acquired in the Attappady
areas where Suzlon Energy had installed 31 windmills, all in the name
of green energy production.
The windmills were sold
to some prominent film personalities and companies. The report of the
Chief Secretary that had come out in July 2010 was used by the United
Democratic Front (UDF) against the Left Democratic Front (LDF) which was
then in power in the State. The UDF raised the matter in the Assembly
and replying to the debate, the then Electricity Minister A.K. Balan
admitted that windmill companies had encroached upon tribal and forest
land in the Kottathara, Sholayur and Agali villages of Attappady.
The
Minister had stated that the report of the Integrated Tribal
Development (ITDP) Project Officer of Attappady revealed that 100 acres
of tribal land and 50 acres of forest land was encroached upon by the
windmill companies. The then Collector K.V. Mohankumar also sent a
report to the government stating that there were widespread
encroachment. He suggested a comprehensive inquiryby the Revenue,
Registration and Forest Departments to bring out the fraud.
Agitations held
Most
of the top leaders of the UDF reached Nallasinha in Attappady in July
2010 to lead an agitation by the tribal people demanding that the
encroached land be returned to them. The UDF leaders demanded action
against the officials and the windmill companies for usurping tribal
land.
They declared at Nallasinha that the two wind
towers standing on the encroached tribal land should be acquired by the
State government and returned to its original owners, the tribal people
of the area. They even led a delegation of tribal people to Delhi and
met Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Vice-President Rahul Gandhi
seeking their support for the agitation.
It had been
nearly three years since the UDF came to power, but they seemed to have
forgotten about the tribal-land issue in Attappady, said M. Sukumaran,
convener, Attappady Samrakshana Samithy.
He said that
in survey no.1,275 of Kottathara village the extent of land was 215
acres. “Fifty acres of forest land and 150 acres of tribal land. But the
entire 150 acres of tribal land is sold and encroached upon using
fabricated documents by the land mafia. In total 25 fabricated documents
were made with the connivance of the officials of Revenue, Registration
and Forest Departments.”
He said though the
government had suspended four officials and three officials of the
Attappady Hill Area Development Society in connection with this case,
all of them had returned to service now. The government had taken no
steps to evict the windmill companies from the tribal land, Mr.
Sukumaran said.
