Environmental clearance to Wayanad tunnel project raises eyebrows

Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala government's State Environmental Appraisal Committee's (SEAC) environmental clearance to the Wayanad twin tunnel project has raised many eyebrows as the committee report itself lists out the damages and risks posed by the tunnel construction in the ecologically sensitive region.

While engineer-turned environmentalist Sridhar Radhakrishnan termed the SEAC report as an institutional betrayal by the committee that was supposed to protect environment, Wayanad Prakrithi Samrakhana Samathai (WPSS - nature protection forum) flayed that the SEAC recommendation is a big tragedy.

The 25 odd conditions suggested by the committee for mitigating the adverse impacts of the project were impractical ones and hence could be seen only as an eye wash, they said.

Radhakrishnan told DH that the SEAC had disregarded its own findings. "The project's ecological fragility, landslip risks, threats to biodiversity, and social impacts are all acknowledged in the clearance document, which reads more like an indictment than an approval. However, it then overrides these concerns with a sweeping list of 25 conditions, the majority of which are contradictory, unenforceable, impractical, or deliberately ambiguous," he said.

He said that on the basis of this overwhelming evidence of risk, the SEAC should have categorically rejected the proposal.

WPSS president N Badusha said that the SEAC seemed to have acted as a rubber stamp by succumbing to the vested interest of the government on the project. WPSS will explore options of resisting the project legally as the clearance report itself elaborates the risk factors involved, he said.

The 8.75 kilometre tunnel from Meppadi in Wayanad to Anakkampoyil in Kozhikode is proposed as an alternative to the popular Thamarasserry ghat road between Wayanad and Kozhikode - a major route between Karnataka and Kerala. The tunnel road could reduce travel time by at least one hour. The estimated cost is Rs 2043.74 crore.