Kerala's Elite Guilty of Flagrant Environmental Mismanagement
The Government and the oligarchs that drive the State economy have been tried and found guilty for the recent flood losses
October 9, 2018, Arattupuzha, Aranmula Village, Kerala
There has been a lot
of soul searching in Kerala and elsewhere as to the causes of Kerala’s recent
floods. The Kerala Govt was ‘very ill-prepared’ to handle (the) Kerala Floods
and ignored safety regulations, says a recently released report from the Special Centre for Disaster Research
(SCDR) and the National Institute of Disaster
Management (NIDM) at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).
“The report titled; KERALA
FLOODS: GOVERNANCE AND LEGAL COMPLIANCE castigates both the current and
previous governments of Kerala and itemizes areas that need to be rectified.
The response of the government has been to shift the blame onto aberrant rainfall
patterns without taking responsibility for poor management and the culture of
environmental permissiveness and neglect that resulted in almost 500 lives lost
and a million homes destroyed.
The investigative team
for the study visited areas where no government assistance reached. The survey
concluded on September 11, and found that:
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The “government has been very ill-prepared to
encounter a disaster.
-
Dam safety rules assisted by flood
inundation maps and early action plans were ignored.
-
The O&M Manuals of 61 completed dams were
not prepared.
The report continued
that the lobbies which govern Kerala were responsible for the disaster:
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“The fragile zones are under big estate owners
who not only control hills and forests but also mangroves which are Kerala’s wall
against coastal disasters.”
The
team observed that since hills are often concretized and constructed upon river
catchments, backwaters and estuaries which provide livelihood to a large fisher
folk community are deleteriously impacted.
-
They said the post-disaster affects are fatal,
as the quantum gush of dam water blasted the aquifers and now much of the state’s
fresh drinking water flows into the ocean and is lost.
“With
the top soil lost and aquifers blasted out, water table has already started
sinking down by almost 4 to 5 feet in the Alapuzha upper Kuttunad region,” the
report highlighted.
Watch this home get submerged. At this point you can see people standing around
Experts that the researchers
met also told JNU researchers that the ‘future of Kerala is 'scary' with
'increasing symptoms of drought and lower productivity'.
Four districts, namely
Alappuzha, Idukki, Kottayam and Pathanamthitta bore the brunt of the flood.
These districts accounted for 20 flood affected taluks and closely interacted
with the 11 taluks which were the worst affected in terms of losses both in
property and the loss of human life.
The research team
visited and surveyed these four worst affected districts but inexplicably left
out Ernakulam District. The Aluva area of Ernakulam District had been flooded
out by the rambunctious Periyar river rendering Nedumbassery Airport unusable.
This team of researchers, which had been
working on environmental devastation and community resilience in Kerala since
2016, said in the report: “Such a calamity was not a surprise. What was
surprising was the lack of preparedness, the intransigence of administrative
authorities and the neglect of panchayats including people living in villages.”
Environmentalist
Madhav Gadgil, in a 2011 report on saving the Western Ghats, had also alleged
that man-made factors such as unchecked quarrying and the unauthorized
levelling of hills had contributed to the disaster.
Vindicating Gadgil’s
report, the JNU researchers averred in somewhat dubious language, “Kerala’s
prime resource to sustainable progress passes through its highly rich and
pristine ecology. The government has acted against nature, environment and
ecosystems so unique to Kerala. One disaster could push Kerala to many years
behind.”
The SCDR(Special Centre for Disaster Research) is
a new academic research Centre at JNU and is also JNU’s first
trans-disciplinary research Centre. Their report was prepared by professor
Amita Singh, faculty at the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance, Dr
Sunita Reddy, Assistant Professor at the Center of Social Medicine and
Community Health, and Dr Manika Kamtham and Dr Gaurika Chugh, Research Scholars
in the study of Law and Governance.
Experts told JNU
researchers that the future of Kerala is “scary” with “increasing symptoms of
drought and lower productivity”. The growth rate could fall lower than 2 per
cent as predicted by experts interviewed, said the report.
“There is no policy of
a coordinated preparedness with other government departments which can extend
to relief work if disaster strikes. Government had been absent from providing
relief or even disbursing an amount as low as Rs 10,007 promised by the chief
minister (Pinarayi Vijayan) as an ex gratia interim grant to affected
households.
With more than 12.5
per cent of the population above 65 years in age, the population also consisted
of further vulnerable sections like single women as well as the disabled and
children who need special care. These groups were not provided for.
Accusing the Kerala
government of abusing human ethics, the researchers from JNU mentioned in the
report, “The most heartrending abuse of human ethics as instructed through
Article 48 A and Article 51 A of the Indian Constitution and DMA 2005 was the
manner in which Kerala government watched the brutal death and drowning in
captivity of their animals – birds in the cages, leashed pets at home, strays
on the road, and pristine wildlife which has fed the tourism industry including
religious tourism, in the state since the time when Kerala had no industry or
technology to earn from.”
“The Early Warning
systems were non-existent and as people shared, they would go off after the
ceremonial installation and newspaper publicity and photographs. Floods have a
great dependence on early warning to people for timely evacuation. Despite a
CAG Reported warning the EWS were neither repaired nor was the private company
indicted for not completing agreed maintenance", said the report said.
An expert panel's deliberations were summarized by Prof. Inder Mohan Kapahy (Educationist),
The aftermath of the
flood and the posturing of the government indicates that Kerala politicians are looking to do business as usual under
the delusion that the flood was an isolated aberration. It is important that
the citizens of Kerala understand the implications of both this recent report
and the Gadgil report and insist that systemic changes be implemented immediately
and without further obfuscation, both in terms of early warning and
environmental sensitivity.
Edited by Pravin J P Arapurakal with some great material provided by C. Balagopal, IAS
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