Long queues of goods-laden trucks continue to choke Muthanga and Thakarappadi, two small towns inside the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary (WWS) on the Kozhikode-Mysore National Highway 212, in the absence of an integrated check-post complex.
The decision to set up an integrated check-post complex at Kallur, a town nearly two km from Muthanga, was announced in November 2008. Though the State government allotted Rs.7 crore four years ago for the first phase of construction and identified 7.53 acres of land by the side of the Kozhikode-Mysore NH-212 at Kallur, construction works remain a non-starter.
Five check-posts of the animal husbandry, commercial taxes, excise, forest, and transport departments are functioning inside the WWS at Muthanga and Thakarappadi near the Kerala-Karnataka border. More than 2,000 vehicles, including over a 1,000 trucks, pass through the check-posts a day.
In the absence of the integrated check-post, trucks wait on the road for hours for clearance from departments. Non-commercial vehicles too wait for long to pass through the stretch.
Apart from traffic congestion on the national highway, long queues of goods carriers from other States pose a threat to the free movement of wildlife. Many a time, travellers are forced to stay inside the vehicle in the sanctuary as vehicles are not allowed in the Bandipur Tiger Reserve stretch of the highway from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. Waste materials thrown from vehicles parked inside the sanctuary put the wildlife in peril.
“We have acquired seven acres of land and handed it over to the Commercial Taxes Department to set up the check-post complex,” a Revenue Department source said. The Commercial Taxes Department is awaiting the final direction of the State government for the purpose, the source added.
