Environmental clearance given for Wayanad tunnel road project despite serious environmental concerns

Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala government's State Environmental Appraisal Committee (SEAC) has given environmental clearance for the Wayanad tunnel road project that could reduce travel time between Kerala and Karnataka through Wayanad considerably.

Despite citing serious ecological issues, including the fact that the project area is under the ecologically sensitive areas close to the back to back landslide spots near Meppadi in Wayanad, the SEAC that met on Saturday gave the clearance.

The SEAC has, however, listed out 25 conditions to mitigate the adverse impact of the project like setting up of four ground vibration monitoring systems and regular monitoring of the work by an environment management committee, according to the minutes of the meeting accessed by DH.

After last year's major landslide at Mundakkai and Chooralmala there was strong protest from environmentalists in taking forward the project as it is close to the landslides spots. The SEAC also deferred its decision several times seeking additional details on the environmental impacts of the project in view of the devastating landslides.

Being one of the flagship projects of the CPM government, there seems to be pressure on the SEAC to give clearance to the project.

The 8.75 kilometre tunnel project with a total cost of Rs. 2043.74 crore has been conceived as an alternative to the popular Thamarasserry ghat road between Wayanad. The proposed tunnel road begins from Meppadi in Wayanad to Anakkampoyil in Kozhikode. 

"The tunnel alignment passes through highly fragile terrain prone to landslides where massive destructive landslides occurred during 2019 and 2024 and stressed the need to have an elaborate environmental management plan.  The project area falls in the Vellarimala village in Wayanad and Thiruvambady villages in Kozhikode that are categorized as ecologically sensitive areas," SEAC chaired by R. Ajayakumar Varma has pointed out in the report.

A stretch of 5.76 km of the tunnel passes through forestland and 17.263 hectares of forest land is required for the project. There is every possibility of aggressive human-wild life conflict, the committee pointed out.

The first condition laid by the SEAC while giving the clearance is that the project activities should be implemented by adopting the most appropriate

safeguards and in agreement to the spirit of Precautionary Principle as the proposed project area is known for its terrain fragility and categorized as ESA.

The other key conditions are to carry out micro-scale mapping of landslide vulnerable zones, setting up of automated weather stations and use of tunneling methods that do not cause any vibration on ground. The SEAC will also carry out a review every six months.

Kerala government has appointed KITCO Ltd as the project proponent and Konkan Railway Corporation Limited is the implementing agency.