District Administration has to be blamed for commercialisation of eco-sensitive region: Petitioner

Mysore/Mysuru: The Karnataka High Court has ordered the issuance of notices to Kodagu District Administration and the State Government on a petition that seeks the establishment of a dedicated and exclusive team to study the repeated landslides and earthquakes in Kodagu District.

Social activist Geetha Mishra has filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the High Court seeking direction to the State Government to constitute an exclusive team to study the repeated landslides and earthquakes in the hilly district.

The PIL was heard by a Division Bench comprising acting Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice J.M. Khaji. The Court later posted the hearing to Sept.1. During the hearing, advocate G.R. Mohan, who presented the case on behalf of Mishra, told the Court that since 2018, there has been a series of landslides  every year.

Several people have lost their lives and scores of them have lost their homes, estates and fields as mud came crashing from hills taking trees and vegetation along with it. The petitioner argued that the Kodagu District Administration is to be blamed for the landslides as it has permitted many land conversions in the name of commercialisation.

The petitioner was vocal about restricting infrastructural activity in the name of development, arguing that the region should be protected in order to maintain the course of the River Cauvery.

Though the State Government was urged to take steps to rehabilitate the victims and the flood and landslide affected in 2020, nothing has been done so far. The State and the District Administration have not so far even tried to analyse the landslide and earthquake patterns in a scientific way but instead neglected the issue. 

This according to the petitioner has caused grave injustice to the people of Kodagu and they are unable to lead a peaceful life. Many villages are living constantly under the threat of landslides and earthquakes.

The petitioner argued that indiscriminate land conversion for commercial purposes, establishment of hundreds of resorts and commercial properties after carving mud from the mountains and rampant quarrying have resulted in devastation. The District Administration has to take the responsibility for this destruction, the petitioner argued.

Despite natural disasters, the Government has not bothered to find out the exact cause of the floods and landslides, thereby affecting the lives of the hapless residents who have lost their means of livelihood, the petitioner argued, praying for directions to the Government.

Environmental activists, for some time now, have been opposing successive State Governments which have allowed rampant commercialisation of the ecologically sensitive region of Kodagu.