The Public Works Department (PWD) will be called upon to explain how it had built culverts of highway-width along the forest road along the Mamalakandam- Kurathikudy tribal stretch in Munnar Forest Division defying the forest conservation laws.
This is the upshot of the ongoing stir led by Idukki MP Joice George against the Forest Department's action recently to destroy five such culverts built, apparently, flouting the forest laws by the PWD along this stretch.
Forest Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan came close to being manhandled by the protesters on Saturday when he visited the area.
The issue is not merely one about culverts. The stretch being unlawfully widened to eight-metre width from the existing three meters forms part of the target set by the pro-development people to revive the old Aluva-Munnar Road, which was abandoned way back in 1924, after it was totally washed away by the 'Great Deluge of 1924.'
There are few people alive now to remember what that deluge, which happened 90 years ago, was. Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai's acclaimed story 'Vellappokkathil' sprouted from this deluge that brought great flooding and destruction in central Kerala region in July 1924.
After the deluge, a new road was built along a different route to Munnar passing through Neriamangalam, Adimaly, and so on. The deluge brought down an entire hill called Karinthiri Malai in a mammoth landslip. The stretch of the abandoned road passing through some of the most breathtaking landscapes of Kerala had remained untouched by the winds of development since then. The PWD top people have come on record that there is no proposal live to rebuilt the road. Yet, apparently, there have been silent efforts to develop this road stretch-by-stretch and by fait accompli get the illegality regularised, which too is not possible in the case of illegitimate roads under the conservation laws of the country.
