: The Kerala Coastal Zone Management Authority (KCZMA) has asked its Ernakulam district committee to submit a report on land modifications, which were identified by the Authority earlier.
A meeting of the recently reconstituted KCZMA was held in the city on Wednesday. Presided by its chairman Suresh Das, they officials at the meet urged the district committee to be proactive on identifying Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) violations and taking action. District collector M.G. Rajamanickam said the committee will meet next month to follow up the directives of KCZMA. The resultant report will be submitted to the KCZMA in June itself, he said.
The Collector conveyed his concern about big violators being allowed to go scot-free while ordinary people are being held up from utilising their negligible parcels of land citing CRZ rules without considering the geographic nature of the State. Mr. Rajamanickam said that a proposal to empower district committees to clear applications for buildings not exceeding 1,000 sq.ft. has been placed before the Authority.
KCZMA had last year handed over an indicative list of land modifications to the representatives of 38 local bodies which were located along the banks of the lake in Ernakulam, Kottayam and Alappuzha districts.
The local bodies included the Kochi Corporation, Maradu municipality and panchayats in the district. The Authority had got the violations in Vembanad Lake flagged by the National Centre for Earth Science Studies following a suo motu case taken by the Supreme Court on the issue.
“We had handed over the list and maps of these “likely violations” to local bodies concerned. But we have not been able to confirm it as yet since these local bodies are yet to return to us with authentic reports,” Mr. Ramachandran said.
