Title-less families on Punalur mill land remain ‘encroachers’

KOLLAM: Over a thousand families, who once depended on the Punalur paper mill for a living, are still “encroachers” as they have not been given title deeds.

The municipality has provided them ‘unauthorised construction’ permits for house construction, apart from the water and electricity connections.

The High Court had recently issued an interim order asking the Punalur municipality to stop further encroachments.

The families who live on the land that was once with the paper mill constitute two wards under the Punalur municipality – Kanjiramala and paper mill wards.

Portions of Chalakkode and Nedumkayam also come under the area covered by these “encroached” lands.

Apart from the settlement norms, a court order has also favoured the workers who served the mill for decades. However, title deeds have not been given to them due to the apathy of the authorities.

“The company wants to evict these families while the municipality issues only a UA (unauthorised) for constructing houses on their land,” Mr S. Biju, CPM Punalur area secretary, told DC.

The paper mill management blames the government for not distributing the title deeds. “We have no issues in giving title deeds to the former workers but we are not the authorised people to do that.

It is the duty of the government and the people’s representatives to take the responsibility for the deed,” Mr Nelson Sebastian, one of the directors of the mill, told DC.

According to Mr. Nelson, the company had 277 acres of land in its possession and out of this, 180 acres was encroached by the former workers before the new management took charge.

He also complained of a recent encroachment by which a family constructed a kitchen extending an existing house on the land owned by the company.

After the management took the case to the court, the court issued an interim order to the effect that the municipality should not support any new encroachments during the reign of the new management.

The Punalur paper mill resumed functioning in September after 23 years of closure. The mill, the oldest in the country, was started in 1888 giving direct employment to over 1020 persons until it was shut in August 1987 due to huge liabilities.

The mill was earlier owned and operated by a management under L.N. Dalmia. As many as 18 employees later committed suicide due to the job loss.