The damage in the recent floods would have been reduced if the State implemented the Gadgil Committee report, environmental activist V.S. Vijayan has said.
“So we have to say that the recent deluge was partially man-made,” he pointed out while addressing a seminar on ‘Post-floods lessons’ organised by the Secular Forum here on Friday.
“The landslides happened in areas marked as Zone 1 and 2 in the Gadgil report.
While Zone 1 has high possibility of landslides, Zone 2 has comparatively high risk of landslides,” Mr. Vijayan, who was a member of the Gadgil committee, said. The Gadgil committee report came in 2010-11. If trees were planted in the catchment areas of the Western Ghats, we could have reduced landslides by 90%. The committee recommended a ban on constructions which obstruct the natural course of water flow and on high ranges with slopes. But everyone ignored the report, he said.
“They burned Gadgil in effigies. People, even priests, conducted funeral procession with coffin of an elected representative who wanted to implement the report. They said the Gadgil report was against the common man. In fact, it was the common man who was affected mostly by the floods,” he noted.
Kerala Sasthra Sahitya Parishat district secretary T. Sathya Narayanan presided. A photography exhibition of N. Ubaid on ‘What left by the floods’ was held on the occasion.
