Thiruvananthapuram: The hartal declared by the High Range Samrakshana Samithi (HRSS) in Idukki district on July 20 was called off on Friday after Chief Minister Oommen Chandy clarified that only those areas protected as forests by the Forest Department at present will be included in the ecologically sensitive areas (ESAs).
A village-level committee, chaired by panchayat presidents, will be formed in each of the 119 villages to fix the boundaries of ecologically sensitive areas (ESAs) in each village, and also to rectify any anomalies in the identification of ESA areas.
This is the second set of village-level committees formed to fine-tune ESAs in the wake of the Kasturirangan report. The earlier one had taken out 3,247 sq km from the 13,801 sq km of ESAs originally estimated by the report, but had failed to fix boundaries.
“Only those areas protected as forests by the Forest Department at present will be included in the ESA,” the chief minister said. He also clarified that plantation areas like Cardamom Hill Reserve were revenue lands.
Following the chief minister’s assurance at a meeting here, the HRSS called off the July 20 hartal declared in protest against the ESA maps prepared by the Forest Department.
The Forest Department, in the maps independently prepared by them, had converted even areas marked as non-ESA in the Oommen V. Oommen report as forest areas.
“In fact, just like the Kasturirangan report, they had branded entire villages as ESA,” said Father Sebastin Kochupurackal, HRSS convenor.
“The chief minister had given us the assurance that populated areas, agricultural lands and estates will be taken out of the ambit of the eco-sensitive areas. He also said that the map prepared by the Forest Department will be fully discarded. In this context, we are withdrawing the hartal declared by us on Monday,” he said.
Each village-level committee, besides the panchayat president, will have representatives of the Survey, Revenue, Agriculture and Forest departments, and it will fix bouncaries. The cadastral maps prepared by the Oommen V. Oommen committee did not have boundaries.
The new committees will fix boundaries. A special team consisting of six members will be trained and sent to each village and they will demarcate the border on the basis of the cadastral map prepared on the basis of the committee report.
