PICTURE OF NEGLECT: Kaviyoor Puncha Padashekhara Samiti leader P.J. John Panackamuriyil showing rusting farming implements.

PATHANAMTHITTA: Kaviyoor Puncha has not come out of bad times. These low-level paddy fields in the district are under water and covered with thick, long grass, ``Pothaal'' in local parlance, other weeds and filth. Cultivation stopped here six years ago. Farmers' say their repeated pleas to the authorities concerned for reviving cultivation have been to of no avail.

The fields span 144 hectares in Kaviyoor and Kunnamthanam grama panchayat limits and Thiruvalla municipality limits.

M.V. Sukumaran Nair, president of Kaviyoor Puncha Padashekhara Samiti, and P.J. John Panackamuriyil, secretary, say two crops used to be raised a year. The once-fertile land was regarded as the ``rice bowl of central Travancore.'' But the Governmental apathy towards paddy cultivation has led to the present state of affairs.

Mr. Panackamuriyil said flow of sewage and dumping of waste from slaughterhouses and garbage yards made the lands filthy. The stagnant water was full of leeches, posing a health risk to people.

Farm tools rusting

Farming implements of the samithi were rusting. ``Pettiyum Parayum,'' a traditional dewatering mechanism of Kuttanad, made of wooden planks, was stolen from the Kuttapuzha canal a year ago. The investigation of the theft reached nowhere, he alleged.

Mr. Panackamuriyil said Ramesh Chennithala, when he was Mavelikkara MP, allotted money from his local area development fund to the samithi for buying a 25-hp water pump. The civic body made a budget allocation of Rs. 4 lakh for supply of seeds, manure and pesticides, though the fields could not be cultivated now.

He said the samithi's plea to include Kaviyoor Puncha in the Kuttanad Samagra Vikasana Padhathi (project for comprehensive development of Kuttanad), launched by the previous Oommen Chandy Government, was ignored.

He sought immediate steps for introducing a facility for watering and dewatering the fields. The local bodies and the Agture Department should prepare a pragmatic action plan to revive paddy cultivation, he said.

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