A team of officials from various Ministries at the Centre would reach here on January 10 to assess the havoc wrought by rains that lashed the State a few weeks ago, Revenue Minister K. P. Rajendran told the Assembly on Wednesday.
Replying to a submission by Raju Abraham (CPI-M), the Minister said the team would be in the State for the following three days and would visit the various rain-battered places. The State Cabinet had sanctioned Rs. 10 crores already to take up rehabilitation work in the rain-affected areas, but this would hardly be sufficient for the purpose given that the rains had damaged around 940 kilometres of village roads and caused extensive damage to property and crops, he said.
Replying to a submission by Roshy Augustine (KC-M), the Revenue Minister said that the government had received as many as 45,000 applications from landless families for allotment of land to them. The government was trying to allot land to as many eligible families as possible by January 31. A function was being organised in Idukki for land distribution. The Cabinet would soon take a decision on allotment of land that had been vacated by the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) after giving up its proposed projects, he added.
Sanctuaries: Replying to a submission by K. C. Kunhiraman (CPI-M), Forest Minister Benoy Viswam said the government proposed to establish three new wildlife sanctuaries in the State including one covering the Thirunelli area of Wayanad district. He allayed the member’s fears about the proposed sanctuary displacing tribal families and said that there were only six tribal families within the proposed sanctuary area. The government would still do everything to ensure that there was no major displacement and would soon hold a meeting of the MLAs and representatives from the local bodies in the area to allay their fears, he said.
Mr. Viswam told V. Sivan Kutty (CPI-M) that the Forest Department was taking a favourable stand in the cases filed by Kanhirathinal George of Wayanad seeking restoration of land that had been taken over by the department in 1977 on the basis of wrong boundary demarcation. Since a favourable decision from the Kerala High Court was necessary in the matter, the government was trying to secure such an order, he said.
Agriculture Minister Mullakkara Rathnakaran told K. V. Kunhiraman (CPI-M) that the government would soon take a decision on exclude copper sulphate from the list of banned pesticides. This is in view of the assumption that persistent use of copper sulphate in the areca farms of Kasaragod district had not caused any major ecological damage, he added.
