KOCHI: The sun shines bright overhead. Sitting on a country boat, Shanmughan casts his eyes aimlessly on the water hyacinths floating in the backwaters. Shanmughan, who operates the boat from Maradu BPCL boat jetty, says hardly any passenger approaches him for crossing the waters nowadays. On the other side, in Nettoor, is a vacant plot with a compound wall and an entrance with ‘Alfa Serene’ written in bold metallic letters.
It has been 10 months since four highrises that together housed 350 flats were razed following a Supreme Court verdict for violation of Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) norms. The debris has since been cleared and people who once called the flats home have migrated to other places. The politicians too don’t remember the demolition episode that hogged headlines across the nation. The parties have also conveniently forgotten the scores of CRZ violations listed by the Kerala Coastal Zone Management Authority (KCZMA).
“Women living on the city’s outskirts used to work in the flats as domestic helps. The workers, who came in the morning and left in the evening, were the regular users of the boat. With the flats gone, there are no passengers,” said Shanmughan. Ravi, a resident of Maradu West, said the flat owners were outsiders and only a few of them had votes here. “Since the occupants did not have any local connect, the politicians have forgotten the episode. The demolition is not an election issue here and I have not seen any politician speak about it during the campaign,” he said.
The owners of the houses located close to the four highrises are yet to get compensation for the damage caused due to the demolition. The politicians are involved in a blame game. While the UDF, which rules the municipality, blames the government for the delay, the opposition LDF blames the chairperson. The municipality has had five chairpersons in the past five years of which one was from LDF. The ruling UDF has 15 councillors in the 33-member council and has remained in power with the support of two independents.
“Former Maradu panchayat president K A Devassy, a prominent CPM leader, accorded sanction to the four apartment complexes in 2006. Though a vigilance probe was ordered against him, the investigation team didn’t even interrogate him. We had brought the violations to light and staged protests,” said former municipal chairman and Congress leader T K Devarajan.
The CPM, however, refutes the allegations and says there is no logic in the fixing of coastal zone. “The CZMA itself doesn’t have a clear stand on fixing the distance from the high-tide level. The distance is different on both sides of the canal as one is a municipality and the other a corporation,” said P Vasudevan, CPM area committee secretary.
Trivia corner
Since its conversion from a grama panchayat in 1995, Koyilandy municipality in Kozhikode has favoured LDF. CPM’s M P Shalini was the first chairperson of the municipality, which is witnessing a tough fight between the ruling LDF and oppn UDF this time.
No longer in memory
It’s been 10 months since the 4 highrises that together housed 350 flats at Maradu were razed in January following an SC verdict for violation of Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) norms. Despite the demolition hogging headlines across the country, local candidates in the fray have forgotten the scores of CRZ violations listed by the CRZMA.
Though politicians are not keen on taking up the demolition issue, people living on the banks of the backwaters, whose houses are listed as CRZ violations, are concerned. The demolition has brought constructions on the banks to a halt and the real estate sector has suffered a setback.