The Kerala Independent Farmers’ Association (KIFA) is launching a Statewide protest on Saturday, demanding that the State government reinstate the Oommen V. Oommen report to determine the Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA) in the State. Association chairman Alex Ozhukayil told reporters here on Friday that the State government had sabotaged the report for vested interests. He demanded that the government reveal the reason for a revised report. The government should also reveal with whom the committee had held discussions before bringing out the new report.
“The Union government had approved the Oommen V. Oommen report which included 9999.7 square kilometres of land in the State as ESA. The Centre brought out the draft declaration in 2014 based on this report. However, the State revised the report and excluded 31 villages from ESA. On the other hand, 746 sq km of farmland were added to ESA in 92 other villages. The geo-coordinates confirm this,” Mr. Ozhukayil said, adding that the State has cheated the people by revising the report, which had excluded farmlands completely from the ESA.
Demands
The KIFA will launch the protest at Thiruvambadi in Kozhikode at 4 p.m. on Saturday. Its demands include reinstating of Oommen report, restricting ESA to forestland alone and excluding farmland completely.
“The government should reveal why the revised report was cancelled for two-and-a-half years,” Mr.Ozhukayil said adding that most of the 92 villages categorised as ESA have a population density of above 100 and hence they should be excluded, if that is the criteria being used to exclude 31 other villages.
The protest will be held at Karuvarakundu in Malappuram on Sunday, at Mannarkkad in Palakkad on December 18, and in Pathanamthitta on December 19.
