No end to water logging woes in Metro village

Kochi: Over 50 families living near the Metro village site are battling water-logging woes for the past several months after the metro authorities raised a portion of the site at Muttom by several feet as part of the Metro Village construction.
Though a sub-committee that includes the local MLA and the panchayat president, was formed to fix the issue, no action has been taken in the last five months. Residents charge that the sub-committee is non-functional and it does not even have the local ward member in it.
“No action is being taken to solve the issue. Every time it rains, drainage water enters our house compounds and contaminates the wells. They should make a provision to drain the water into Periyar river through channels,” said V Gopinath, a local resident.
 “The (former) collector had promised to carry out an ecological impact study before going on with the project. However, nothing of that sort was carried out. The area comes under the wetland category. We’re not against the metro work but they should take precautionary measures,” said K K Sivanandan, member, Choornikkara Panchayat.
Nearly 50 hectares of land is being acquired to set up the ‘Metro village’, a township with shopping and housing complexes as part of the metro system aimed at generating revenue.
 The Choornikkara panchayat committee had earlier passed a resolution against the reclamation of the wetland, charging that real estate lobbies were trying to reclaim the paddy fields under the guise of acquiring it for the Kochi metro project.
Recently, the High Court ordered status quo with respect to the reclamation of paddy land and wetland acquired for setting up the Metro Village at Muttom.