Greens fear large-scale reclamation of wetlands

KOCHI: The revisions proposed by the Union government to the Land Acquisition (LA) Act have come a big jolt for the greens who fear the worst for the state's environment.

Exemptions to projects from social impact assessment (SIA) and landowners' consent may result in massive reclamation of wetlands, they fear.

Mega projects such as the Amballoor electronic park and Metro village require reclamation of hundreds of acres of paddy field.

"The reclamation of paddy fields will cause huge damage to environment. It will also cause water scarcity in the surrounding areas," said environmentalist S Sitaraman.

"One cent of land can store around 1.25 lakh litres of rainwater a year. This helps to replenish groundwater as 48,000 litres of the 1.25 lakh litres will be be stored as groundwater. For the Metro village, around 230 acres of paddy fields have to be reclaimed. This would translate to losing around 300-crore litres of rainwater if these fields are taken over. It will certainly cause huge scarcity of drinking water in the area. On the other hand, floods would become a regular event during monsoon," he said.

If consent from landowners was made mandatory, it would have helped to check large-scale land reclamation. "Now, they don't need the consent from landowners. This will help authorities to acquire land easily," he said.

Likewise, SIA exemption would have an adverse impact on the rehabilitation and resettlement of affected people. A SIA normally looks into aspects such damages to livelihood of landowners. It also suggests proposals to mitigate such damages. Once the SIA clause is removed from the Act, agencies that take over land will have a free hand to pursue projects that impact local population.