Munnar: Legal process may delay land eviction

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posted on 13 years ago — updated on 1 second ago

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MUNNAR: After the hue and cry to quickly evict the encroached land here, the Revenue Minister's arrival on Sunday to just earmark ..

MUNNAR: After the hue and cry to quickly evict the encroached land here, the Revenue Minister's arrival on Sunday to just earmark areas evicted a month ago indicates the government's stand on the eviction process.
It was disappointing for the people who expected serious action against the encroachers who had constructed the luxury resorts and home stays in the greeneries of a place that will be soon included as the ecologically sensitive area in the Western Ghats. Revenue Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan said the government is avoiding "ugly hastiness" so that all the encroachers can be evicted and the process would move on the legal path. The evicted land will be earmarked so that no encroachments would happen in future, he added.

The major question raised now is the credibility of the two-week grace period that was earlier given to encroachers to volunteerly evict the land. If all the declarations were made just to place the revenue department's board in the lands, evicted a month ago, such a grace period was unnecessary as the lands that were evicted and earmarked in Chinnakannal and Munnar areas contained no major constructions. An environmentalist, on the condition of anonymity, said, "The government stand to take the legally safe road to evict encroachers may delay the reclaiming of the entire revenue land." Even though the construction of new resorts has been given a stop memo, other major resorts are still functioning, he said. Further, he claimed that the land related cases submitted in 2007 are still pending in the court. The Munnar tribunal, which was constituted to take up these cases, has not yet been fully functional.

Defending the government stand, Subcollector M G Rajamanikyam, said, "It is improper to say that the revenue department officials are not ready to take risk in removing the luxury hotels and resorts here."

"The revenue department will take all possible measures according to the directives of the government in demolishing such big constructions in the next phase of the eviction drive," he explained.