The Communist Party of India (CPI) will continue its struggle to protect the environment and nature with added vigour, especially in the wake of the ongoing excessive exploitation of natural resources in different parts of the district, newly elected CPI district unit secretary A.P. Jayan has said.
The CPI leader was addressing presspersons at Pathanamthitta Press Club on Saturday. Mr. Jayan said the CPI had always been in the forefront of the popular movement against the controversial Aranmula airport project that required conversion of a vast expanse of the low-lying paddy land. He said the party would continue its mass struggle and legal battle to protect the biodiversity-rich Aranmula Puncha and the natural streams. However, the CPI leader expressed deep concern over the inordinate delay on the part of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Union government in cancelling the clearances given by the Civil Aviation Department and the Defence Department for the private airport, against the backdrop of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) setting aside the environment clearance granted to it.
Even the Supreme Court of India had dismissed the plea of the private company against the NGT order, he said. Mr. Jayan said that the former CPI district unit secretary, P. Prasad, had filed a series of petitions at the High Court, against the government move to assign the ‘puromboke’ land to the private airport company in violation of the Land Reformation Act and seeking the restoration of the natural stream that had been illegally converted in the name of the project.
