Renewed concerns over procedural violations
Kozhikode: Just three days before the first anniversary of Mundakkai-Chooralmala landslide that killed 298 people and destroyed two villages, PWD minister PAM Riyas announced the start of the Anakkampoyil-Kalladi-Meppadi twin tunnel road project.
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The 8.2km road will cut through a high-risk landslide zone in Wayanad, an area hit by several landslides. He called it an Onam gift for Kerala.
The irony was inescapable on Wednesday when ministers paid floral tributes at the mass grave of landslide victims in Puthumala, a village which is just 0.85km away from the tunnel road site. Puthumala itself saw a deadly landslide in 2019 that killed 17 people.
Even as state govt moves ahead with the controversial Rs 2,134-cr tunnel road project, the plan is facing fresh scrutiny.
It has now come to light that the approval process involved several procedural lapses—especially in how the environmental impact assessment (EIA) was handled by an agency linked to the state govt. There are also allegations that the project proponent withheld key information while seeking Stage-1 forest clearance.
Questions have been raised about whether state level environment impact assessment authority (SEIAA) had the proper jurisdiction to assess the project.
Despite warnings in the report that the tunnel route passes through landslide-prone terrain where major landslides occurred in 2019 and 2024, state-level expert appraisal committee granted environmental clearance (EC) in March.
MoEFCC's expert appraisal committee (EAC) granted the final EC in May laying down 60 conditions—despite acknowledging that the tunnel would pass through vulnerable and landslide-prone terrain, reportedly relying on SEIAA's appraisal.
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Earlier, Wayanad Prakrithi Samrakshana Samiti had raised concerns with the Centre, arguing that the project falls within eco-sensitive area (ESA) villages and should have been treated as a Category-A project. According to EIA notification, any Category-B project located within 5km of an ESA must be treated as Category-A and appraised at the central level by EAC.
Samiti said the project's ESA status was deliberately downplayed.
It pointed out that while seeking approval to divert 17.2 hectares of forest land, PWD's executive engineer falsely declared in Form A that the project did not fall within any protected or ESA zones. However, the tunnel route clearly passes through ESA villages—specifically Thiruvambady in Kozhikode and Vellarimala in Wayanad—and should have been assessed by EAC, not at the state level.
Director of Hume Centre for Ecology and Wildlife Biology CK Vishnudas said that the tunnel alignment passes through terrain marked as high landslide hazard zones by Kerala State Disaster Management Authority.
"It's an ecologically fragile area and carries a high risk of future landslides, especially near the crown of the 2024 Mundakkai landslide," he said.
Environmentalists have also questioned the credibility of EIA study. It was conducted by Konkan Railway Corp Ltd and KITCO—both institutions with strong links to Kerala govt. The state is a stakeholder in Konkan Railway, the project's special purpose vehicle and KITCO was founded by the state with IDBI and public sector banks.
Their close ties to the govt raise serious concerns about the objectivity and independence of the EIA process.
As govt pressed ahead with the project through a region repeatedly scarred by landslides, environmentalists cautioned that neglecting ecological safeguards and past lessons could lead to disastrous consequences. Bhopal-based Dilip Buildcon Ltd had bagged the tunnel construction contract.
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