Govt sat on panel report, Gadgil's fears come true
A 9-member panel set up by the environment ministry with renowned ecologist Madhav D Gadgil for the study of the Western Ghats had prescribed conservation of Kerala’s Western Ghats in view of its fragile mountain ranges. The government, however, stonewalled its recommendations like regulation of the nature exploitation and concrete construction along the ghats that could have prevented the state from battling the fiercest floods in a century.
The Pune-based Gadgil (76), founder of the Centre for Ecological Sciences in Bengaluru, says Goa may be the next to face the disaster for ignoring environmental precautions.
“Goa, of course, does not have Western Ghats which are so high as in Kerala, but I am sure Goa will also experience all sorts of problems purely because of greed for profits and a lax government in implementing the environmental norms,” he said.
Gadgil said he feels sad for the people of God’s Own Country where he had
Goa may be the next to face the disaster for ignoring the environmental precautions, says the ecologist
worked intensively for a year as the head of the committee set up by the Centre on the environmental protection.
Its three-fold task was to compile information on the biodiversity hotspot, develop a geo-spatial database and interact with government bodies and civil society groups.
The committee had recommended division of the Ghats into three zones to conserve them with different level of intensity. None of it yielded a positive response from the then Congress government of Oommen Chandy.
Gadgil said that ‘almost every political party had interest in scuttling our recommendations’ and that is how protests against his report made public in 2012 led to formation of another committee headed by scientist K Kasturirangan who effectively muted his panel’s recommendations by preparing a watered-down version in October 2013.
The ecologist says: “Political leaders resorted to false propaganda. Corrupt netas, handin-glove with one mafia or the other, sensed a sure slide in slush money. For instance, we found plenty of illegal mining quarries along the hilly tracts of Kannur and Pathanamthitta. They had the patronage of this political party or that religious group.”
Today, the high ranges on Kerala’s eastern belt bordering Tamil Nadu are among the worst affected. Landslides across two weeks have uprooted their trees, buried buildings along with people and dumped mounds of earth on the rivers.