TAKING BACK MUNNAR

Munnar, Kerala’s idyllic hill station, is lately in the news for reasons that are largely unflattering- widespread encroachments on government land has been (suddenly?) detected. The Government, led by the Chief Minister who, for once, decided to stand firm against all pressure,is in the aggressive process of evicting the encroachers and seizing back precious land.
Predictably,it has become obvious that the encroachers had the support of political parties of all hue and colour, aided and abetted by revenue officials who are still in the process of being identified. With the tourism boom sending land prices spiralling, extensive land grabbing was only to be expected in this part of God’s own country. Yet, absolutely nothing was done by previous governments to forestall it.Bustling and congested and dirty, Munnar today is a far cry from the idyllic days of yore.

Back in 1951, the town was administered by a Scottish tea major, who owned all the picturesque tea gardens in the vicinity. A team of sweepers, led by an exacting overseer, spruced up the town meticulously, twice a day. Unlike today, there were never mounds of garbage scattered around or dumped in the river, which incidentally gave the town its name. A sanitary inspector constantly checked on sanitation and other aspects of public health. Traders who violated sanitary norms had their licences revoked promptly.
Most of the hills flanking the town were densely wooded in those days; it was common to hear the spirited crowing of jungle cocks, the soft cooing of imperial pigeons and even the startled call of the barking deer.

Today, the hills are mostly bare and pockmarked with shanties, wildlife having long withdrawn into the interior. Widespread deforestation has, inevitably, led to erratic fluctuations in annual rainfall-even prolonged spells of drought, something unheard of in the past, is a common phenomena today. The town market, then well maintained and orderly, is today a squalid maze of shabby stalls with dead rodents strewn around.

Tourism came to the fore in Munnar only in the mid-eighties, when the administration passed into the hands of the local panchayath; the gradual decline of the hill resort started precisely then. Bull dozers, gradually but relentlessly, began clawing down the hills. With little or no planning, hotels and lodges mushroomed haphazardly all over the town. Left unchecked by the corrupt officialdom, the construction boom spread its tentacles to the outskirts of the town as well, straining its already fragile ecology.

Today, Munnar is dominated by towering concrete monstrosities which are eyesores in every sense of the word, and cluttered up with shanty tea shops and rickety fast food joints. Scores of shops, hotels and lodges jostle for space and the wayside vendors all but spill on to the road. Beggars and urchins have a field day pestering the tourists, especially foreigners-many of whom would be ruing the day they were taken in by the travel agents and brochures.

The biggest casualty of Munnar’s tourism boom is , without doubt, sanitation. The town is swept clean every morning, but is again littered with garbage hardly an hour later. The town’s main river, in which trout and carp flourished once, is polluted beyond imagination by the discharge of effluents and waste. The public toilets stink; cleanliness and hygiene in the local eateries leave much to be desired. In short, civic sense does not even exist. But then, is that not the story in entire Kerala today?

All in all, it’s a deplorable state of affairs. Here, as elsewhere in Kerala, mercenary conditions matter the most-the end always justifies the means, however unethical. Yet, somehow, despite the ecological upheaval and the unending onslaught of ‘tourism’, Munnar manages to survive – barely.

Generously endowed with nature’s bounty, Munnar still has the potential to develop into one of the finest hill resorts in the country. But for that, the Government, and the people, have to show stern resolve and a sense of purpose. Happily, the Chief Minister is showing exactly that right now, sending a handpicked team- to mercilessly demolish resorts and other buildings and retrieve vast areas of encroached land -and backing them to the hilt even in the face of huge pressure from all fronts-even his own party.

The question however remains; how did all this land pass illegally into the hands of unscrupulous politicians and businessmen? The scale of corruption involved is mindboggling .And having taken back all the land, what next? The authorities have to be very firm that all future developments-which is necessary to promote Munnar in tourism circles- will happen as per regulations and without adversely affecting its natural assets. It is easier said than done, because in this holy land, making money-by hook or crook- is still the one and only priority. You can bet your last rupee that the corrupt politicians, officials and businessmen are just lying low, and given half a chance, will be back with a vengeance to loot Munnar.

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Update 18.05.07
The Supreme Court has rejected a petition from The Munnar Hoteliers' Association requesting a stay on the demolition process currently underway, which means the demolition goes on in full swing. After 'taking back' Munnar, the demolition team proposes to move on to evict encroachers at Kumarakom, Wagamon and Kovalam. High time, huh?

It is reliably reported that there are more than 70,000 hectares(1,75,000 acres) of encroached land waiting to be regained in Kerala. Of these, 12,000 hectares is forest land, 8000 hectares of which has been confirmed as post-1977 encroachments in a joint verification by the Forest and Revenue Departments.

The 'verification', and subsequent eviction, in the remaining 4000 hectares of forest land has been conveniently put off-on the pretext that verification lists are missing (naturally!).Interestingly, thousands of hectares of encroached forest land is awaiting verification in a single range of a single division of Malayatoor.The indifference of the Revenue and Forest officials to conducting a joint verification in such a large area has led to the regularisation of even the pre-1977 encroachments.Meanwhile, fresh encroachers are entering the fray, with fresh applications pouring into the forest offices.

Apart from this forest land, nearly 60,000 hectares of revenue land is also under encroachment in the state. The Cardamom Hill Reserve tops the list with 35,000 hectares, including 10,000 hectares illegally leased out by the Revenue department.Kannan Devan Hills is next, with illegal encroachments in 13,600 hectares, interspersed within the land awarded to the company-and almost to the same extent in the land vested with the Government as per the Resumption of Lands Act of 1971. Another area of massive encroachment is the Pallivasal unreserved area in the Devikulam taluk, where land is under the Revenue Department and tree growth under the Forest Department!

Which all begs the obvious question, what the hell were the previous Governments ( of either colour ) doing while all this was going on?

Farcical end to 'Operation Munnar'

More snippets.....Yet another hartal

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