eloor, as we have tracked in this blog, is a stunning but massively abused island in kerala. with its beautiful scenary, the majestic periyar river and wonderful kerala people, this place should have been one of the jewels of india.

but the same eloor is one of the toxic hotspots of india and a cancerous place even to breath. with massive pollution from industries (big private players as well as our own government run industries) on ground water, air and river periyar, eloor can be termed as hell hole of kerala.

couple of months back, the government with enough fanfare announced a good scheme called periyar action plan with the idea of cleaning periyar river. very good idea no doubt. but what happened now?

many things. many things that were supposed to happen did not happen. the dead kerala pollution control board (pcb) did not do its work on submitting the river status from pollution point of view, the kerala water authority did not submit the papers on the river quality and the pampa action plan (which is in the national river protection scheme) has been stalled asking the national river conservation directorate(nrcd) to question why another plan when one such plan is already stalled for pampa river.

let's shift focus a little. assume a mega indian company wanted to setup a polluting industry in banks of periyar like 3 months back. bang, right now all the approvals would have come!!!

'development' is faster when it is needed for industries and the same development never happens when it comes to india's environment. similar type of government entities but different types of results when it comes to industries and environment.

i can't help repeat. how fake can fake development get.
(picture and text courtesy tehelka. periyar action plan along with pampa action plan have proven non starters in the progressive state of kerala. if kerala's environment is in such bad shape, it shudders to think about other 'developed' states of india)