Environment directorate official inspects airport project site

The row over the proposed private airport project at Aranmula has taken a new turn with the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) reportedly taking a serious view of the conversion of paddy fields and wetlands for setting up the project.

The MoEF had taken note of a report in The Hindu on February 2 (Airport project triggers widespread protest) and sought clarifications from the State government on the allegations that the site identified for the project included paddy fields and wetlands.

Reviving its preference for hydel systems as sources of sustainable power generation, the State once again is opening up investment opportunities in ‘green' power with the identification of 57 small hydro-electric projects that have a combined capacity to generate nearly 170 MW of power (more than 440 million units a year).

The ‘green power house' is being opened up after a gap of two decades and is a key feature that expects to lure investors through Emerging Kerala 2012.

Panel names erring government agencies

Government agencies, including the Forest Department, Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) and the police, are contributing to the pollution and environmental degradation of the Pampa river by releasing untreated waste into the river system.

A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on Wednesday directed the Irrigation Department to ensure that waste accumulated in the Pampa river was removed and the natural flow of the river was maintained.

The Bench comprising Justice Thottathil B. Radhakrishnan and Justice C.T. Ravikumar directed the department to press into service appropriate machinery and material to ensure removal of the waste and free river flow.

The Central Travancore district of Pathanamthitta, especially its hilly tracts, is fast sliding into the grip of acute drinking water scarcity.

The summer had an early onset in January. Wells and natural streams in the hilly areas of Ranni, Konni and Adoor started drying up from mid-January onwards, leaving the common people in a difficult situation.

With a series of environmental problems and degradation threat looming large over the rivers Pampa and Achankovil in the wake of the recent Supreme Court order directing the Centre to implement the proposed river linking projects, Kerala Electricity Workers Federation (KEWF) has called upon the Government to expedite the proposed small hydro-electric projects (SHP) in Pampa and Achankovil rivers on an emergency basis.

Both the Congress-led United Democratic Front Government and Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front Opposition in Kerala on Wednesday came out against the Supreme Court directive to the Centre to implement the river-linking project, holding that such a scheme was detrimental to the State's interests.

The lingering fear that linking the Pampa and the Achencoil rivers in Kerala to the Vaipar in Tamil Nadu will spell disaster in the central Travancore region has come to the fore once again with Monday's Supreme Court verdict in the river interlinking case. The link project has been figuring in the river diversion dreams of neighbouring Tamil Nadu.

The court directed the Union government to constitute immediately a ‘special committee' for interlinking of rivers for the benefit of the entire nation.

The Pampa Parirakshana Samiti (PPS), a Kozhencherry-based prominent environmental group that has been campaigning for the cause of Pampa since the past two decades, have called upon the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) to take immediate steps to cancel the clearance granted for the proposed greenfield airport project at Aranmula.

In a letter to the secretary, MoEF, the PPS general secretary, N.K. Sukumaran Nair, alleged that the clearance granted by the Environmental Appraisal Committee (F No. 10-51/2010-IA) for the KGS Aranmula Greenfield Airport project was based on certain “undisclosed and incorrect information, without considering the ground reality.’’

Steps to augment sewage treatment and water supply will be taken up before the next season at Sabarimala besides improvement of roads and parking facilities, Minister for Transport and Devaswoms V.S. Sivakumar said on Tuesday.

The Minister was speaking to the media after a high-level meeting chaired by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy here to review the performance during the just-concluded pilgrimage season at Sabarimala and plan for the next season.