Krishnadas, a petty sweet vendor at Erimayoor, Palakkad, is a lost man. His hopes of moving into a secure house from the tin-shed house, which shelters his four-member family, withered as the application for reclaiming the 10-cent paddy-wetland which the government had allotted him for setting up a house was rejected citing the Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act, 2008.
The application for excluding the holding from the databank of paddy-wetland too met with the same fate. The efforts of his wife Sreedevi seeking the intervention of the Palakkad Collector through an adalat too had failed.
It was a report of the local-level monitoring committee (LLMC) headed by the agricultural officer that the holding cannot be reclaimed as it was paddy-wetland in the basic tax register and the property remained an agricultural land after the enactment of the Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act 2008 that went against him.
Meanwhile, in Kottukal taluk in Thiruvananthapuram, 5,928 cents (24.7980 ha) of paddy-wetland will soon give way to roads and chemical storage facilities, thanks to the State government’s decision to permit reclamation of the wetland.
On April 18, the government issued orders permitting the conversion for development works associated with the Vizhinjam international seaport project.
Utility of Act
Fourteen years after enactment, the effectiveness of the Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act, 2008 in checking conversion of wetlands is being seriously debated. There have been criticism that the Act favoured the rich and mighty while being insensitive to the genuine needs of the socially and economically marginalised sections.
While reports of the LLMCs have allegedly thwarted the dreams of hundreds of small-time applicants such as Mr. Krishnadas, the government had intervened and overruled the recommendations of the State-level monitoring committee (SLMC), as in the case of the Vizhinjam port, it is pointed out.
In the case of Mr. Krishnadas, says Abubacker Siddik, a former member of Thenkurissi panchayat in Palakkad, the holding was allotted by the government under a scheme for the landless to construct a house.
While Mr. Krishnadas has been denied permission to construct the house after reclaiming the holding, a huge shopping mall is coming up on a tract of paddyland in the nearby Kannadi panchayat. A private hospital and a villa project have also come up in the area reclaiming paddy wetland. The law that denied the poor family an opportunity to move to a secure house, permitted the construction of massive structures right in the middle of paddy fields, says Mr. Siddik.
Interestingly, this is the second instance in three years the State government had bypassed the recommendation of the SLMC in clearing reclamation for the port project, which is being implemented by the Adani Group.
Earlier, the committee had rejected a request for reclamation of wetlands at Kottukal, which was inundated in the 2018 floods, citing ecological reasons. The SLMC report had then noted that the flood map of Vizhinjam panchayat indicated that the site was severely affected during the August 2018 flood.
The holding was also recorded as nilam (field) in the databank. The company had then sought permission to fill 8,892 cents (35.6984 ha).
Defending the decision of the LLMC to reject the application of Mr. Krishnadas, S. Bincy, agriculture officer, Erimayoor, says the applicant was residing in a makeshift house set up on the paddy field since 2009. No request for conversion after the enactment of the Act can be entertained. Paddy is still grown in all the holdings located around the plot owned by the applicant.
Letters from paddy farmers fearing that reclamation will affect cultivation are regularly reaching the office. The application for excluding the holding from the databank was also rejected as it was recorded as paddy wetland in official records, says Ms. Bincy.
At the same time, she says the LLMC had also cleared several applications from eligible applicants for reclamation of paddy wetland for construction of houses. In some cases, the committee had suggested revenue officials initiate action against those who had illegally reclaimed paddy wetlands.
Objective of the law
It was on August 12, 2008 that the Act was notified to “conserve the paddy land and wetland and to restrict the conversion or reclamation thereof, in order to promote growth in the agricultural sector and to sustain the ecological system, in the State of Kerala.”
The enactment, during the tenure of the Left Democratic Front government led by V.S. Achuthanandan, was passed to check the indiscriminate reclamation and conversion of paddyland and wetland in the State.
The then Revenue Minister K.P. Rajendran piloted the Bill in the Assembly “in public interest, to provide for the conservation of paddyland and wetland and to restrict the conversion or reclamation thereof, in order to promote agricultural growth, to ensure food security and to sustain the ecological system in the State.”
“The delay in the timely preparation of the databank on paddy and wetland has been one of the major lacunae of the legislation. A pilot project of the databank was prepared for Kumarakom during the tenure of the government. Subsequent governments seemed to be not keen on taking the project further. If not for the legislation, which had attracted even international attention, the wetlands and paddy fields of the State would have vanished by now,” says Mr. Rajendran.
He says there are complaints that the requests of commoners for reclaiming paddy or wetland for construction of houses are often rejected whereas proposals of corporate houses and industrial groups are favourably considered.
The legislation was passed after the select committee of the Assembly held 22 sittings at different parts of the State, which were attended by a large number of stakeholders, made four visits to other States, and scrutinised over 14,500 representations. It was a rare democratic process. One of the social contributions of the legislation is that it significantly increased the level of awareness against the reclamation of wetlands, says Mr. Rajendran.
Pro-rich tilt?
Vidhya Sangeeth, a lawyer and a former district panchayat member of Mulankunnathukavu in Thrissur, who fought against the alleged reclamation of wetland by an NRI industrialist in the district some years ago, says that the Act had watered down the provisions of the Kerala Land Utilisation Order, which prevented illegal conversions.
Ms. Sangeeth says the Act facilitated the rich to put up shopping malls on reclaimed wetlands whereas it turned a blind eye towards the genuine needs of the homeless. Though the Thrissur Collector in 2015 had ordered the restoration of the wetland, which was reclaimed to set up shopping malls and apartment complexes, nothing has happened on ground over the years.
Making a mockery of the law, the project, which came up in violation of the Act, was recently given a prize for water conservation, she says.
Hareesh Vasudevan, a lawyer specialising in environmental issues, says the subsequent amendments to the Act defeated its legislative intent.
“The amendments empowered the government to overlook the recommendations of the SLMC and clear individual cases in the guise of public purposes. The definition of the term public purpose was made flexible so that the government can name any project of its choice as public purpose. Any project can now be termed as for public purpose and granted exemption from the Act,” says Mr. Vasudevan.
“The amendments also gave the government the power to carry out studies by any agency of its choice to bypass the SLMC. These two changes vested the government with unbridled powers to defeat the recommendations by the SLMC, an expert body. The validation of the databank using high resolution satellite imageries has not reached anywhere even after 14 years of the enactment of the legislation,” he says.
At the same time, one of the SLMC members, on condition of anonymity, says nearly 90% of the panel recommendations had been valued and implemented by the government though it overlooked the suggestions for projects such as Technopark expansion, waste to energy plant at Brahmapuram, and the Vizhinjam project.
Mr. Vasudevan says in the case of the landless, the government should identify non-wetland holdings for setting up housing units, thus saving wetlands from reclamation and addressing the genuine concerns of the poor.
Revenue Minister K. Rajan says the government is of the view that cases of people from the economically weaker sections shall be considered favourably. It is the approach of the government towards applicants in the housing projects under the LIFE Mission. Reclamation of paddy lands can be carried out only as envisioned in the law. The government will act tough against illegal reclamation of paddy and wetlands, he says.
