Thrissur: The decision of the LDF-led Thrissur Corporation to initiate procedures to fill-up several acres of paddy fields near residential areas which witnessed massive flooding and water-logging in the 2018 deluge and 2019 flash floods has several residences’ associations and greens here up in arms.
The three major projects planned by the civic body by reclaiming a total of nearly 36 acres of paddy fields are Rs 36-crore sewage treatment plant near Thrissur Railways Station and two private bus stands at Puzhakkal and Mannuthy.
The United Residences’ Association (URA) is planning to protest before the civic body office on Tuesday when the corporation council will take up for discussion in its agenda the proposal to be submitted before the state government for acquiring paddy fields from private persons.
“Several residences’ associations in the Puzhakkal paddy field region had experienced severe waterlogging in 2018 and 2019 . Further filling up of paddy fields in Puzhakkal where several hundreds of acres have already been reclaimed is against the new concept of development which the state government itself has proposed after the 2018 deluge,” P Krishnan Kumar a resident of Peringavu near Puzhakkal said.
However, district planning Committee member and former deputy mayor Varghese Kandamkulathy said that the proposed projects were part of the civic body’s master plan and environmental issues and post-deluge concerns could not come in way of such developmental projects.
