Representative image showing people protesting.
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Thiruvananthapuram: The Wayanad Prakrithi Samrakshana Samith (WPSS) nature protection forum will approach the high court against the nod granted for the Kozhikode-Wayanad twin tunnel project.
They alleged that the Kerala government hid crucial facts from the expert appraisal committee under the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.
The meeting of the expert appraisal committee on May 14 and 15 recommended the clearance by listing out 60-odd conditions, most of which pertain to addressing the ecological concerns.
WPSS president N Badusha told DH that the concerns raised by environmentalists have been clearly vindicated by the expert committee and hence the conditions were prescribed.
He also alleged that the state government obtained the initial stage-one clearance for the project by hiding many crucial facts, like the presence of endangered bird species such as Banasura Chilappan in the region, a hindrance for elephant movement and that the proposed tunnel's alignment passes through highly vulnerable terrain prone to landslides. The major landslides of 2019 and 2024 occurred close to the project area.
"Since the expert panel failed to protect the ecological concerns, we will be approaching the high court," he said.
While the state government is projecting the tunnel road project as a remedy for the traffic congestion along the Wayanad-Kozhikode ghat road, WPSS pointed out that with one-tenth of the cost of the tunnel road project, the existing five ghat roads of Wayanad could be widened.
The 8.75-km tunnel project with a total cost of Rs 2,043.74 crore has been conceived as an alternative to the popular Thamarasserry ghat road between Wayanad and Kozhikode, which is a key route between Kerala and Karnataka.
The proposed tunnel road begins from Meppadi in Wayanad to Anakkampoyil in Kozhikode.