Pathanamthitta: The Kerala government will submit a fresh report this week to the central government after correcting mistakes in the previous report on eco-sensitive areas (ESAs).
The report submitted had mistakenly included human-populated areas in ecologically fragile zones. Announcing the decision to make the corrections, officials blamed the mistakes on wrong entries in forest department records.
Farmers had pointed out several human settlements that were included in the report. The corrected report will exclude such areas from the eco-sensitive zones.
The corrections were being made based on the directive of a five-member committee constituted by the central Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC).
The State Directorate of Environment and Climate Change would be trying to include only forest land in ESAs in the new report. Areas such as government-owned plantations, and catchment areas of reservoirs with no human settlements, too, would come under ESA.
However, doubts have been raised over the accuracy of the report being prepared without visiting such areas. Officials were facing practical difficulties in demarcating the ESA boundaries within a short time.
The earlier report was prepared based on maps provided by the State Forest Department and Google Maps. Farmers have raised concern over satellite image-based report which included several villages and agriculture fields located outside the forest areas. It was also pointed out that the report had excluded a few areas within the forests.
The State environment directorate said it had to rely more on the forest department since the revenue department lacked official documents regarding village boundaries. Villages, where the re-survey was yet to be completed, were mostly included in ESA in the faulty report.
Meanwhile, former Additional Chief Secretary P H Kurian clarified that the State had not formed a commission with him as chairman to list out ESAs. As the secretary for the department of environment, he had signed the recommendations submitted by various departments, which has been wrongly interpreted as the P H Kurian Commission report, the former bureaucrat said.
No ESAs in State: Karnataka
Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj S Bommai has reported to the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) that his State does not have ESAs.
Bommai has adopted such a stand since notifying ESAs would affect the ongoing works in such areas.
Since a BJP-ruled Karnataka has made such a stand, other States, including Kerala, believe that MoEFCC would not go ahead with its planned ESA declaration, though the ministry has hinted that there won't be any change in its plan.
The draft notification issued on October 3, 2018, in this regard has validity till June 30.
