With the State-level Monitoring Committee on the Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act twice rejecting the request for the reclamation of paddy land for the waste-to-energy plant at Brahmapuram, the State government may take the ordinance route for filling up the paddy field.
An ordinance permitting the State government to clear the reclamation of paddy and wetlands without waiting for the approval of local and State-level monitoring committees is expected to be promulgated this week.
The two-member panel was asked to revisit the site and relook into its earlier report, which categorically rejected the request for reclamation.
However, the panel stuck to its original report and suggested that paddy cultivation shall be taken up at the 15.78 acre in tune with the policy of the State government to begin cultivation in all fallow lands of Kerala.
Going by the indications, the proposed ordinance would give powers to the State government to clear the requests for reclamation and bypass the opposition of local and State-level committees for reclamation of land for public projects and those in which the government is involved.
The ordinance, it is learnt, would replace the word ‘recommendation’ of local and State-level committees with the term ‘report’ so that the government can decide independently on the issue of reclamation.
Ecology will be hit
It was the local resistance against conversion of paddy land and the reports of local and State-level committees in some parts of the State against the reclamation of land for the Liquified Petroleum Gas Pipeline and Brahmapuram projects that prompted the State to take the ordinance route.
In case of the Brahmapuram project, the panel reported that the paddy field that was proposed to be reclaimed for the project, formed an ‘extremely important ecological entity and conversion of these marshy land would lead to long-standing and disastrous ecological consequences.’
It was also pointed out in the report that the reclamation would ‘adversely affect the water table in these areas, leading to the shortage of drinking water in and around the paddy fields apart from harmfully affecting the ecology of the region.’
The panel also reported that the region was an ‘important abode for biodiversity.’
Several “species of birds including migratory birds as well as birds of prey which have been included in the Schedule 1 of the Wildlife protection Act,” were also found at the site, the panel reported.
