KALPETTA: While the greens cry for conserving the remaining rocky mountains of Wayanad in the wake of acute shortage of water and devastating summer, the granite mining groups are increasingly targeting Manikkunnumala, the granite-rich mountain near Kalpetta. More than hundred acres of land had already been purchased, and an application for permission submitted to the revenue department. The local people resisted an attempt to start a large quarry at the tip of the mountain range in Thrikkaipetta village near Muttil.
Despite a ban in the district, the mining group made a road to a land purchased for starting the quarry. Earlier in a report to the district collector, then South Wayanad DFO P. Dhanesh Kumar had said that widespread felling of trees was reported from 15-hectare land in the Thrikkaipatta village. Five persons now purchased the property belonging to seven titles and owned by 23 persons. All these persons are linked to mining activities. However, the active campaign of the local community, environmentalists and scientists, which is still on, stopped the preparatory activities by the buyers for quarrying.
A google picture of a quarry functioning in Manikkunnumala, Kalpetta.
Though an application seeking permission for a quarry was submitted to the village officer, after the protests, the district administration stalled any mining activity. Munduparakkunnu anti-quarry action council chairman P.A. Poulose said the local people are very much scared about a quarry in the region which would force them to flee for life. In a letter to District Environment Disaster Assessment Committee, he alleged that they were trying to bribe both local people and officials. MS Swaminathan Research Foundation director N. Anilkumar said the entire Wayanad would be affected if there is any damage to the Manikkunnumala mountain ranges. “The mountain not only nestles rare species of flora and fauna but influences the weather patterns of the region,” he told Deccan Chronicle.
