Gadgil report:Kasturirangan panel holds hearing

With various sections in Kerala including ruling and opposition coalitions opposing total implementation of the Gadgil Committee report on the Western Ghats conservation, the working group on the panel headed by former ISRO chairman K Kasturirangan today held a hearing in the high range district of Idukki.
Political representatives and farmer outfit leaders who turned up for the interaction shared their concern over possible displacement of people in villages in the hilly district as a result of implementation of the report.
After the hearing, Kasturirangan said the working group would properly accommodate the sentiments conveyed by the people while taking a comprehensive view of such vital issues like protection of bio-diversity.

He said the working group had so far received over 1000 suggestions during its sittings in various states concerned like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashstra and Goa.
Located on the slopes of the Western Ghats, Idukki is one of the most populated stretches of the mountain range having many plantations and hundreds of small and marginal farm holdings.
The high range area is populated by descendants of people who migrated from the lower areas generations ago and they fear that the recommendations of the Gadgil report are so drastic as they posed a question mark on their future, a farmers union leader said.

The Congress-led UDF Government had already written to the Centre against some of the basic recommendations of the report including its demarcation of the sensitive zone with several restrictions put on the human activity within it.
The Centre has assured the state that the working group led by Kasturirangan, a Planning Commission member, would take proper note of the views of the people and make suggestions to address their genuine woes.
He was in Wayanad in north Kerala yesterday, also an upland area that shares geographical and agronomic features of Idukki.