Green hurdle ahead for Emerging Kerala

It seems that more projects under ‘Emerging Kerala’ are going to be entangled  in environmental roadblocks.

Even though  Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has reiterated  that the paddy fields will not be levelled for ‘Emerging Kerala’ projects, the website for the investors’ meet states that about 3.5 lakh hectares of land under paddy cultivation can be converted for tourism projects. 

“Kerala has tremendous potential for developing farm tourism in a big way without much additional investment. About 3,50,000 hectares of land under paddy cultivation can be converted into tourist attractions in order to transfer the benefit of tourism directly to the farmers. As a step towards this, Kerala Tourism has launched Green Farms Kerala, an exclusive venture that aims at preparing the farms and plantations in the state to receive tourists,” the website says.

Alarmed at the new development, the ‘greens’ have already come to the fore, expressing their concern.

“Are there plenty of paddy fields in the state that can just be given away? We have been compiling a list of  projects that face environmental hurdles and will soon meet the Chief Minister asking him to withdraw them,” said V S Vijayan, former chairman of the State Biodiversity Board.

He   is currently on a mission to list out the ecologically sensitive projects that are  proposed to be presented at ‘Emerging Kerala’ investors’ meet.

Environmentalist C R Neelakandan pointed out the disparity between the state government policies and the proposed projects.

“Though the projects fall under farm tourism, the land cannot be maintained for farming purposes alone for the project to be profitable. Similarly, there is the Aranmula airport project. It will also have major environmental impacts once implemented. There is a 16-metre-wide canal in this region in addition to the paddy lands,” he said.

The eco-resort project, proposed at the virgin Dharmadam island, has also kicked up a controversy. The locals point out that the government had taken over the land about 15 years ago, as part of the efforts to protect the island. The proposed 40-cottage resort would simply kill the island, they pointed out.