Thiruvananthapuram: A group of eminent persons in the city led by poet B Sugathakumari have submitted a representation to the Chief Secretary demanding that the “destruction of the hillock in and around the Veli-Akkulam lake area be stopped".
Apart from the poet, the other signatories are filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan, CPM politburo member M A Baby, architect G Shankar and environmentalist Sridhar Radhakrishnan. A copy has also been submitted to District Collector Biju Prabhakar.
The letter says that though one hill has been partly destroyed, this has helped only 10 percent of the filling that was needed. The project would need many more hills.
“If the 6m-carriageway and two 4m-carriageway along the 26km-stretch needs to be elevated to 1.8 m height, it would add up to 700,000 metre cubes of earth. The government has allowed removing 60,000 metre cubes of soil,” says Shankar.
The letter says that “the whole arrangement looks extremely suspicious.” Keonite clay soil taken away from the Nirmithi Kendra site, according to the letter, “does not have the bearing strength and if it is used for developing roads, the contractors should be made liable for the damages in future.”
It also says that “the contractor has done the hill-cutting in a very unscientific manner leaving a vertical face of more than 80 feet.” To examine the contentions, the letter requests that an independent committee which has environmental engineers, geologists, and architects be constituted.
The letter demands an inquiry into the demolition issue, and report to the public why such destruction was done in the first place. The environmentalists are waiting for the response of Chief Secretary P K Mohanty who is out of station. The Collector asked everyone to present their concerns to him on Wednesday, but remained unavailable for comment on Thursday.
