With the Supreme Court on Thursday directing the maintenance of the status quo on the Taurus Downtown Trivandrum project, following a petition filed by city native Thomas Lawrence, works have come to a halt.
The petition had highlighted that reclamation and destruction of wetlands were in violation of the Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act, 2008 and the Central Wetlands Conservation and Management Rules, 2017.
According to Technopark chief executive officer Sasi Meethal, the work on the project had restarted only recently after being stopped following the COVID-19 outbreak.
“The work has been progressing well till the COVID-19 outbreak. The deadline is next year. Now, we have to see how things will be after this order. We have not yet got in touch with the company,” he said.
Order sought
Mr. Lawrence had initially approached the National Green Tribunal in 2018 seeking an order to stop the mass destruction of the Velli-Akkulam Wetland Complex and with a direction to restore and preserve the same.
The National Green Tribunal in October 2018 directed the District Collector to consider the issue and take appropriate action.
The NGT later closed the proceedings, which was challenged in the Supreme Court.
The agricultural officer of Attipra in January 2018 submitted a report to the RDO saying that the reclamation of the wetland, where construction was being carried out, was harmful to the environment. A local-level monitoring committee, consisting of 12 agricultural officers and 12 village officers, too said the same in its report to the district administration.
But the State government exempted some survey numbers in the area from the Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act 2008, as per an order issued in 2018. The exemption was given for 34 cents allotted to Winterfell Realty Pvt Ltd, an Indian subsidiary of Taurus. The area was marked paddy field in the land data register.
