Panel names erring government agencies

Government agencies, including the Forest Department, Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) and the police, are contributing to the pollution and environmental degradation of the Pampa river by releasing untreated waste into the river system.

A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on Wednesday directed the Irrigation Department to ensure that waste accumulated in the Pampa river was removed and the natural flow of the river was maintained.

The Bench comprising Justice Thottathil B. Radhakrishnan and Justice C.T. Ravikumar directed the department to press into service appropriate machinery and material to ensure removal of the waste and free river flow.

The Central Travancore district of Pathanamthitta, especially its hilly tracts, is fast sliding into the grip of acute drinking water scarcity.

The summer had an early onset in January. Wells and natural streams in the hilly areas of Ranni, Konni and Adoor started drying up from mid-January onwards, leaving the common people in a difficult situation.

With a series of environmental problems and degradation threat looming large over the rivers Pampa and Achankovil in the wake of the recent Supreme Court order directing the Centre to implement the

Both the Congress-led United Democratic Front Government and Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front Opposition in Kerala on Wednesday came out against the Supreme Court direct

The lingering fear that linking the Pampa and the Achencoil rivers in Kerala to the Vaipar in Tamil Nadu will spell disaster in the central Travancore region has come to the fore once again with Monday's Supreme Court verdict in the river interlinking case. The link project has been figuring in the river diversion dreams of neighbouring Tamil Nadu.

The court directed the Union government to constitute immediately a ‘special committee' for interlinking of rivers for the benefit of the entire nation.

The Pampa Parirakshana Samiti (PPS), a Kozhencherry-based prominent environmental group that has been campaigning for the cause of Pampa since the past two decades, have called upon the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) to take immediate steps to cancel the clearance granted for the proposed greenfield airport project at Aranmula.

In a letter to the secretary, MoEF, the PPS general secretary, N.K. Sukumaran Nair, alleged that the clearance granted by the Environmental Appraisal Committee (F No. 10-51/2010-IA) for the KGS Aranmula Greenfield Airport project was based on certain “undisclosed and incorrect information, without considering the ground reality.’’

Steps to augment sewage treatment and water supply will be taken up before the next season at Sabarimala besides improvement of roads and parking facilities, Minister for Transport and Devaswoms V.

The district administration will prepare a comprehensive action plan for the conservation of the Pampa, Manimala, Achenkovil, and Kallada rivers which course through the district, District Collecto

The proposed River Protection Authority law, which is now being vetted by the Law Department, will prioritise reinvigorating the Periyar, the Pampa, and the Bharatappuzha, Chief Minister Oommen Cha