Thiruvananthapuram: After it looked like the government was unnecessarily delaying field checks, the Kerala government has decided to immediately conduct field inspections in 115 villages to identify the extent of human presence in the proposed one-kilometre ecologically sensitive zones around 22 protected areas in Kerala.
This was the major demand raised by both the opposition and the Kerala Catholic Bishops' Council (KCBC) and farmer outfits.
The decision was taken at a high-level meeting convened by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday. Forest, revenue and local self-government ministers, the chief secretary and the principal secretaries of the three stakeholder departments and the principal chief conservator of forests took part in the meeting held in the Chief Minister's chamber.
The three departments involved - revenue, forests and local self-government - will hold another meeting on December 21 to thrash out ways to complete the ground-truthing, and field checks, as quickly as possible. The deadline to submit complaints regarding the satellite survey, which was originally fixed as December 23, has also been extended by two months.
To counter the allegation that the government stood for including human habitations within ESZs, the high-level meeting has also decided to publicise the revision petition filed by the government in the Supreme Court on August 17 this year.
According to sources, it is clearly stated in the revision petition that human habitations should be exempted from ESZs.
However, the opposition charge was that the government had not bothered to withdraw a 2019 notification that proposed the inclusion of human habitations in ESZs. Also, it was felt that the government had sat on the satellite report for three months even after knowing that there were glaring defects and omissions.
Further, there was a consensus in the meeting that the latest crisis was precipitated by the incomplete satellite survey. The government's complacency was reflected in forest minister A K Saseendran's statement in the Assembly that there were no complaints regarding the satellite survey.
It was therefore decided to officially communicate that the satellite survey was not a final or authentic document. It was just part of an information-gathering exercise.
Other important decisions made during the meet:
A request to extend the submission date will be made at the Supreme Court as the satellite report is considered ambiguous.
Date for submitting suggestions, concerns to be included in the satellite survey by the public extended till January 7.
The information collected in this manner will be verified at the field by Revenue-Forest-LSG officials at the panchayat level.
Information will be collected from the public through a committee including local representatives
The details of the field survey will be determined at 12.30 pm on Wednesday during a meeting of the sub-committee comprising of local self government, Forest, Revenue departments and ministers. Ministers MB Rajesh, AK Saseendran, 87 panchayat presidents and Village, Survey officials will participate in the meeting.
