The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : KWA to issue eviction notices soon

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Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

KWA to issue eviction notices soon

G. Mahadevan

Only properties on ‘puramboke’ land on ‘pipeline road’ to be affected

KWA completes survey from Peroorkada to Kowdiar
Sketches of sites to be prepared

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Revenue Department will begin issuing eviction notices to those who have encroached upon ‘puramboke’ land, on the Peroorkada-Vellayambalam stretch, beneath which the 33-inch main pipeline of the Kerala Water Authority (KWA) passes.

A survey of the ‘pipeline road’ from Peroorkada to Kowdiar was completed in July. A similar survey from Kowdiar to Kanaka Nagar was completed in June 2007. Then, encroachments on 2.5 acres (1 acre = 0.4 hectare) of land were identified along this 3-km stretch.

“The surveyors should now prepare sketches of individual plots. This would be completed by the end of this week. Then, we will start sending notices to people who own properties that are encroachments,” a Revenue official said here on Sunday.

“Eviction notices will be issued to only those who are found to be occupying ‘puramboke’ land as per revenue records and not to everybody beneath whose property the pipeline passes. In some cases there are no records to show that the KWA owns land there.”

Clearance

The authority says a clearance of five metres is needed on either side of the pipeline to carry out maintenance of the line.

The catch is that if this requirement is met, portions of 75 houses on the Kanaka Nagar-Kowdiar road will have to be demolished.

Because of this, and the fact that neither the authority nor the Revenue Department has records to prove its ownership of land in many areas, any designation of current private properties as part of a ‘pipeline road’ will run into rough weather legally.

Adding to the authority’s woes are the troubles relating to a couple of properties near the Kowdiar junction.

Its engineers say they have proved that the pipeline passes beneath the property said to be owned by a builder, Heera Babu, and one owned by K.G. Abraham.

Last week, when the officials entered this property and dug trenches to trace the pipeline, the result was a police case in which the Superintending Engineer is the main accused.

“We are happy that we were able to clearly show that the pipeline passes beneath the property. That is what we really wanted to do,” a senior KWA engineer said here on Sunday.

Houses in danger

The engineer said that if the line — laid in the 1920s — burst, the houses built on top of it were in danger of collapsing.

On the Kowdiar-Devaswom Board junction road, a few huts have been built almost on top of the line. One has to walk on top of the line to move around in this place.

The line is no longer a ‘gravity main’ but a ‘pumping main’ (means water does not flow under the force of gravity and is pumped through it).

Its obvious ruggedness notwithstanding — the line has not needed any repair all these decades — the possibility of a leak or burst cannot be ruled out.

The KWA officials say that it is up to the State government now to take a call. The line was laid at a time when all land belonged to the king of Travancore.

Now a balance needs to be struck between safety of those who have houses very near or on top of the line and the right of these people to own property, the officials reason. However, say sources in the KWA and the Revenue Department, there have been little or no discussions at the government level on this issue. The positive aspect — for the KWA — about this survey is that once the sketches are completed, the government will have a clear idea of the extent of encroachments on what should have been a pipeline road from Peroorkada to Vellayambalam and of the extent of land that the government will have to acquire to maintain a semblance of a pipeline road.

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