Thiruvananthapuram: Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday slammed Union minister of environment, forest and climate change Bhupender Yadav for his remarks blaming illegal human settlements and unauthorised mining for the Wayanad landslides . He said such accusations were an insult to victims of the disaster. “Who are these so-called illegal settlers? The workers of the estate buried in the landslide? Or the ordinary people living on their small plots of land? Anyone with even a basic understanding of Kerala's hilly regions knows that it is impossible to label the residents there as illegal settlers ,” he said.
Yadav had on Monday accused successive Kerala govts of neglecting crucial environmental factors such as soil topography, rock conditions, geomorphology, mountain slopes and vegetation structure while permitting human habitations. They kept allowing “expansion of illegal human habitation and mining” in ecologically fragile areas over the years, he said. We also published the following articles recently Wayanad disaster result of illegal human habitats, mining allowed by Kerala: Bhupender Yadav The Kerala government faced criticism from Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav for allowing illegal habitat expansion and mining in ecologically fragile areas, causing devastating landslides in Wayanad.
Despite warnings and draft notifications to protect the Western Ghats, necessary measures were delayed. The recent disaster highlighted the urgent need for eco-s.