When it should have rained, August was unusually dry in Munnar, a hill station known for its misty tea gardens dating back to the late 19th century, in Kerala’s Idukki district. It brought bad news for John Quintez, a 55-year-old tour guide, as his clients made last-minute phone calls to tell him that they were calling off their scheduled trip in view of the dry weather.
This year, the town in the Western Ghats, with verdant forests, ravines, and a national park that is home to the endangered mountain goat, the Nilgiri tahr, recorded its lowest rainfall in 10 years for August. At 1,600 metres above sea level, a 63% drop in rainfall was particularly worrying.
“Monsoon tourists just need a tent or a small place to stay as the prime attraction is the microclimate of the hill station. Most tourists check the weather of Munnar once they are in Kochi, the closest city some 120 km away, and give the place a miss if it is raining heavily or is uncharacteristically hot,” explains Quintez, a fourth-generation member of a family that arrived in Munnar for plantation work from Tamil Nadu. A tour guide for 23 years with mostly foreign clientele, he says mindless construction activity has changed the character of the hill station.
Uphill from here
On September 2, the Kerala government issued a final notification forming the Munnar Hill Area Authority based on a Cabinet decision taken in April. It says Munnar, Devikulam, Marayur, Edamalakkudy (Kerala’s only tribal panchayat), Kanthallur, Vattavada, and Mankulam panchayats and a few divisions of Chinnakanal and Pallivasal panchayats will come under the authority, whose stated aim is to ensure the region’s ‘sustainable development’ while curbing illegal construction.
But environmentalists are not convinced, and fear that the authority’s focus could shift from environmental preservation to allowing constructions.
Says E. Kunhikrishnan, an expert on the Western Ghats, “Look at what happened in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh in the name of tourism development. Is that what they want to replicate in Munnar? I would say ecology should drive the development plans in Munnar, which is susceptible to natural calamities.”
But there are those such as Sojan Munnar, coordinator of My Munnar Movement, who believe Munnar has been underdeveloped. “The town was developed by the British and, later, the Tata Plantation company to provide basic amenities to plantation workers. While its clout grew as a tourist destination, the infrastructure growth wasn’t in sync. The Forest department, the District Tourism Promotion Council and the panchayat receive crores of rupees from tourism-related activities, but they have failed to join hands to develop proper facilities,” he laments.
Lalitha Sivan, a resident of Ekka Nagar, near Munnar, rues that natives of Munnar often find themselves being treated as encroachers. “My family lives in four cents of land at Ekka Nagar. Over the years we submitted applications for title deed but have not received it yet. Without a title deed, we cannot take a loan for children’s higher studies. The reality is that most beneficiaries of tourism are outsiders,” she says, fearing the new authority will bring more restrictions.
Countering the argument is environmentalist M.N. Jayachandran, who insists that tourists go to Munnar to enjoy its chilly weather. “The drizzle (noolmazha) that once had tourists flocking to Munnar through the year is no longer guaranteed. Tourism and plantation work, the two main vocations of the people of the region, will be badly hit by the change in weather patterns. Frequent landslips in areas where roads have been widened show that Munnar can do without heavy construction activities,” he says.
Tour guide Quintez, too, points out that the British or the Tata company never really carried out massive construction in the fragile hills. “The structures remained small and need-based,” he says.
While there is a consensus among stakeholders in restricting constructions in the Munnar area, there is resentment over extending the same to neighbouring panchayats. The Idukki Land Freedom Movement, an umbrella syndicate of traders’ associations, 22 farmers’ groups, and several religious and community organisations, had agreed to limiting construction in Munnar up to a maximum of three floors. But its district general convener Rassak Chooravelil demands to know the extent of the proposed hill authority’s jurisdictional area.
The government should demarcate the contours of the Munnar hill station and come clear on why it included Bison Valley, a verdant village some 25 km away from Munnar in Udumbanchola taluk, and other panchayats under the hill authority, he asks.
A state of construction
In the last week of July, Idukki District Collector Sheeba George imposed restrictions on construction activities in 13 panchayats in the Munnar region under the District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA), a part of Parliament’s Disaster Management Act, 2005.
According to officials, the directive was based on an interim Kerala High Court order on construction in Munnar, while considering a case filed by One Earth One Life, a non-governmental organisation that propagates a “mindful lifestyle” centred on care for the environment. In a subsequent report to the High Court, the District Collector said there were 330 land encroachment cases in the Munnar region spread across the hills.
Land use has been a vexing issue in Munnar. In 2007, the then Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan had delegated a three-member special task force to reclaim land that had been encroached upon, in a high-voltage eviction campaign. The move hit a roadblock halfway through and was later flayed by the High Court.
The Kerala Assembly, which is in session now, has amended the Kerala Government Land Assignment Act, 1960 and the regulations under the 1964 Rules. The idea is to regularise buildings with a still to be decided floor area on land assigned for agricultural purposes besides regularising other diversions. Amendments to the 1964 and 1993 Rules was a long-pending demand of farmers’ groups and political parties in the hilly district of Idukki. What was lacking was a provision that allowed the government to legalise use of land for purposes other than for which they had been allotted. The amendment will empower the government to do that, explains a revenue official.
But there is dissatisfaction over the amended Act. Rassak Chooravelil doubts if it will allow full enjoyment of land titles in Idukki district. Further, instead of regularising structures of up to a specified floor area after charging a fee, they should be treated as ‘naturally regularised’, he argues.
“The government is providing room for corruption as people are now forced to approach officials for regularising their constructions,” he says.
Meanwhile, the fear of losing their holdings is rife among settler-farmers. Thannivelil Thomas, a small-scale farmer in Santhanpara panchayat, says the 3.5 acres he owned was taken over by the government and added to the Mathikettanshola National Park back in 2002. “I did not receive a single penny by way of compensation for losing my land. How can the farming community survive in Idukki?” he says.
Also pinning hopes on the new amendment as a panacea for Idukki’s land woes is N.P. Sunilkumar, area secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in Idukki’s Santhanpara. The construction of the party’s area committee office at Santhanpara had run into a row for alleged violation of a ‘stop memo’ issued by the village office and an order by the High Court. The district secretary of the party is now facing contempt charges.
“The recent order restricting construction activities in 13 panchayats in Munnar was issued without consulting people’s representatives. The people of Idukki also have the right to enjoy their land for all purposes like those in other districts. Some green activists with vested interests are working against the interests of the people,” says Sunilkumar.
Lali George, a former panchayat member in Bison Valley, explains that her experience of attempting to build an Anganwadi in her ward was terrible. “At first, the district administration refused to give a no-objection certificate stating that the land title was only for farming and house construction. We were forced to take legal recourse and the court ruled that a no-objection certificate is mandatory when land is used for purposes other than those it has been assigned for,” she says.
The new amendment fails to enthuse her. “In all likelihood, it will create a fresh set of problems for the people of Idukki,” she reckons.
