Achuthanandan

Thiruvananthapuram, Feb. 2: Kerala’s Left government has vowed to raze “illegal” check dams allegedly built by the Tatas in violation of environmental norms on land leased to the group’s firms in Munnar.

The demolitions are planned as part of a larger anti-encroachment drive being resumed in the hill town from February 6.

Chief minister V.S. Achuthanandan said after a cabinet meeting today that one of the first tasks under the anti-squatter Operation Munnar Phase II would be to demolish the check dams constructed by the Tatas on “ecologically fragile areas, affecting the water flow (of rivers and streams) through the group’s plantations”.

The dams are on land leased to Kannan Devan Hills Plantations Company Pvt Ltd (KDHP), in which Tata Tea holds a major stake. But KDHP, served a notice last week by the local authorities asking it to dismantle one such dam, dubbed the move “unjust”. Managing director T.V. Alexander said KDHP would go to any extent to fight the “unjust move” to dispossess or interfere with its rights on land rightfully assigned to it.

KDHP is said to be drafting its reply to the notice, sent by the collector on January 29 giving the firm a week to respond. But it is also prepared to move the high court if the government doesn’t comply with norms before removing the dams. The firm is the largest tea producer in the south with an annual output of 21 million kg.

The notice to KDHP followed a nudge from the front to clear all encroachments. The stand marked a shift from 2007 when the front had accused Achuthanandan of being “adventurist” in his plans to evict the squatters and raze illegal structures. The support for the crackdown is seen as having been prompted also by a recent high court observation that “green Munnar had become brown Munnar” because of encroachments.

Speaking after today’s meeting, the chief minister said the cabinet had approved 16-point plan prepared by a ministerial sub-committee set up to suggest ways to develop Munnar. The plan includes issuing title deeds to all settlers prior to 1977, cancelling lease rights in case of violations by lessees, driving out encroachers, razing illegal construction and drawing up a plan for a Munnar township. The cabinet, he said, will also request the high court to set up a magistrate’s court in Munnar exclusively to dispose of land cases.

KDHP was set up in April 2005 as part of a strategy by Tata Tea to let its 13,000 workers acquire stakes and run plantations profitably. But Achuthanandan, then Opposition leader, had resolved to get the land under KDHP resurveyed and recover 50,000 acres “illegally” held by it. In 2007, just one year into office, he sent an eviction team to Munnar but the mission was aborted because of lack of political backing from the front.

However, in renewing the drive, the chief minister has been asked to stick to the script prepared by his party, the CPM. Achuthanandan, though, has trying to send the impression that he is not being held in leash.