Kerala - Pathanamthitta   

`River linking will destroy Kuttanad'

Staff Reporter

Government accused of adopting casual approach

PATHANAMTHITTA: The Janata Dal leader M.P. Veerendrakumar, MP, has alleged that the Pampa-Achencoil-Vaipar Link Project (PAVLP) proposed by the Union Government would ultimately lead to total destruction of Kuttanad.

Mr. Veerendrakumar was inaugurating a people's convention on the proposal to divert water from the Pampa and Achencoil to Tamil Nadu organised by the Kerala Congress(Secular) in Thiruvalla on Saturday.

According to him, the proposed PAVLP will cease the flow of water into Vembanad Lake, making the backwaters a giant pool of filth.

The proposed PAVLP would cost dearly to Kerala and it was high time the Union Government assessed its pros and cons and abandoned the project which would destroy the bio-diversity-rich Kuttanad region, he said.

Mr. Veerendrakumar alleged that the PAVLP, if implemented, would lead to acute water scarcity in the river basins in Pathanamthitta, Kottayam and Alappuzha districts. The State has been taking a casual approach towards the PAVLP all these years, despite the strong pressure to implement it by the Tamil Nadu from 1995 onwards. Kerala had miserably failed in ensuring its due share of 80 tmc of water in the Kaveri river water dispute, he said.

Various river diversion experiments elsewhere had proved disastrous to the environment and ecology of the river basin. It was ironical that the very same Central agency that denied permission to the Twin-Kallar Project proposed by the Kerala Government, propping up the forest destruction necessitated for its implementation, had accorded clearance for the PAVLP, he added.

Addressing the convention, the Kuttanad Vikasana Samiti leader Fr. Thomas Peeliyanickal has said that the ongoing agitation against the PAVLP would continue till the project was abandoned forever.

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