Kalpetta: Judicious land use sche-me will be introduced in each grama panchayat in Wayanad which has faced serious rain havoc this time.
Mr Keshavendra Kumar, special officer in charge of rescue operation in the district with additional charge of district collector, said that the geographical peculiarities of Wayanad demand restrictions in the land use pattern. The district is placed at an altitude of 700-2,100 metres from the mean sea level. A committee will be set up to chalk out the details of the scheme, Mr Kumar said.
Mr Keshavendra Kumar, who was district collector here in 2015, was brought in as special officer as collector A.R. Ajayakumar has gone on leave.
During his tenure, Mr Keshavendra Kumar had introduced restrictions on the construction of high-rise buildings in Wayanad, but they were tweaked which worsened the situation. Mr Kumar is now planning to enforce those regulations to avoid future catastrophes.
As per the rules introduced then, buildings were permitted only up to a height of 15-metres (five floors) in the municipality area, 10 metres (three floors) in grama panchayat area and eight metres (two floors) for the ecologically sensitive Lakkidi area of Vythiri grama panchayat.
Pozhuthana, Panamaram, Kotathara and Vythiri areas were the worst-hit by landslides and floods. Vythiri tops in the revenue loss. Lakkidi region reported landslip and ne-ighbouring Sungandhagi-ri witnessed 20 landslides. Mr Kumar had promulgated the rule in his capacity as the chairman of the district disaster management authority (DDMA).
Though greens welco-med the move, the then UDF government and ma-jor political parties oppo-sed it. The collector had imposed curbs on earth movers also. But after the ban, the builders of Lakk-idi won a stay from the High Court. No grama pa-nchayat evinced interest to vacate the stay and Mr Kumar was subsequently transferred.
