Officials colluding with river encroachers in Kozhikode, alleges committee

The Kallai River Protection Committee is planning to file a contempt of court petition in the Kerala High Court against the Kozhikode district administration for the latter’s alleged failure to implement the High Court order to remove encroachments from the banks of the Kallai even two years after the order was issued.

The Kallai River Protection Committee is planning to file a contempt of court petition in the Kerala High Court against the Kozhikode district administration for the latter’s alleged failure to implement the High Court order to remove encroachments from the banks of the Kallai even two years after the order was issued.

Faisal Pallikkandy, the newly elected president of the District River Protection Committee, said the authorities had not even been able to implement the Government Order (GO) that special committees should be formed for the protection of rivers.

The committee is also planning to conduct awareness programmes across the district on protection of rivers. “We plan to identify encroachments on all rivers in the district and present the findings before the public and create awareness among them about protection of rivers,” said Mr. Pallikkandy.

The committee also alleged that officials were colluding with encroachers. “Earlier, Revenue officials were willing to conduct inspections whenever we reported encroachments. Now, even those in the office of the tahsildar do not pay heed to complaints,” said Mr. Pallikkandy, adding that they had put the responsibility on local bodies, citing the GO that the protection of river banks was the responsibility of local bodies.

“Officials with local bodies are most reluctant to visit the sites. Even if they visited, they would just serve a stop memo. Mostly, no further action is taken,” he alleged.

The committee pointed out that encroachers were benefiting from the reluctance on the part of the Revenue department and local bodies to take responsibility in the matter.

The committee noted that there were large-scale encroachments on the banks of not just the Kallai, but also of the Poonoorpuzha, Mampuzha, Korapuzha, Pullippuzha, and Chaliyar, and the Conolly canal. Despite construction activities on encroached areas, the authorities had made no move to investigate or take action against offenders, it said.