Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday hinted at the possibility of the Centre intervening to save Kerala’s famous hill resort Munnar which recognised by the UN as one of the 34 most sensitive environmental wonders on Earth and is undergoing terrible eco-destruction due to large-scale encroachment of forest land and illegal construction of sprawling, multi-storey resorts in the name of tourism.
After meeting a delegation of the State BJP led by its president Kummanam Rajasekharan, the Home Minister, who is in charge of the National Disaster Management Authority, told the media persons at Aluva near Kochi that he had received a memorandum from them and “I will go through the memorandum and then, whatever is needed will be done.”
Singh’s statement has come at a time when the CPI(M)-led lDF Government has initiated a drive to retrieve Revenue and forest lands grabbed by encroachers and demolish illegal constructions in Munnar. However, the Government is facing the allegations of doing nothing to save Munnar and protecting encroachers who reportedly include top leftist leaders.
Speaking to the media persons after the meeting with the Home Minister, Kummanam, who has a history of leading environmental crusades, said, “A very dangerous situation that could bring about far-reaching consequences like the one in Uttarakhand exists here. We have brought this fact to the notice of the Minister.”
Munnar and other regions in Idukki district had witnessed some highly disturbing natural disasters like landslides the cause of which, according to environmentalists, were eco-destruction caused by land-grabbing and unscientific farming and construction. Some vehicles had been damaged when huge rocks slipped off a hill in Pallivasal, Munnar just two weeks ago.
The memorandum submitted to the Union Minister is part of the State BJP’s effort to make the issue of Munnar a national-level debate as the party holds that the ruling lDF as well as the Congress-led Opposition UDF have adopted a hypocritical policy when it comes to the question of ending encroachments and illegal constructions in Munnar.
A team of the BJP led by State chief Kummanam had visited Munnar last week amidst the raging controversy pertaining to the allegation that the house of S Rajendran, the CPI(M) MlA from Devikulam in the Munnar region, has been built in an encroached plot of land that had originally been allotted to the Kerala State Electricity Board.
In the meantime, a section of people including religious leaders and traders’ body have called for a shop-closure agitation on Monday to protest against what they describe as media terrorism, over the reports appearing in the media frequently about encroachments and illegal constructions in Munnar.
“If there are large-scale encroachments in Munnar, those lands should be identified and retrieved. Nobody is opposing such moves. But if the effort is to harass the ordinary people in its name, it cannot be accepted,” said a representative of a traders’ body which is part of the Janakeeya Samara Samithi (People’s Agitation Council) which has given the call for the stir.
Hotel and resort owners also form part of the Samithi which is accusing the media of projecting those who had settled in the Munnar area several decades back as land-grabbers. They also allege that a bid is on in Munnar to destabilize the tourism industry in Munnar. The two main political fronts are of the opinion that settlers and encroachers cannot be considered as a single category.