Contravening the Supreme Court’s directions to the Nilgiris district administration to ensure that basic amenities such as roads are only made available to adivasi residents in unsettled janmam lands in Gudalur, the O’Valley town panchayat has not only turned a blind eye towards illegal constructions by private residents, but has also sanctioned the construction of roads and even a park in a crucial elephant habitat.
In its order, the Supreme Court had directed the District Collector, the Nilgiris, to “ensure that road, footpath, electricity line and other like facilities, now proposed to be provided to the tribal hamlets, are not made available to the illegal occupants of the janmam lands…”
However, in O’Valley, a crucial elephant corridor rife with negative human-elephant interactions caused by numerous encroachments, the Executive Officer of the panchayat has not only overlooked a number of illegal roads, footpath and building constructions by encroachers living in the area, but has also sanctioned the construction of a road as well as a park.
