Ooty: Nilgiri Documentation Centre (NDC), an NGO here, appealed to voters in the Nilgiris to make candidates contesting the LS polls commit to work for special status for the Nilgiris which is facing ecological and economic instability in recent years, and put it on the track of development and employment generation.
Veteran Dr Dharmalingam Venugopal, director of NDC, said that the Nilgiris is entering its third century of modern development.
It has been globally recognized as a heritage site. No other hill station in the country or outside possesses, produces or supplies an ancient and endangered biodiversity and indigenous culture, a rare climate, power, water, tea, tourism, vegetables and a crime free society like the Nilgiris.
In the last three decades, the Nilgiris has been systematically, though unwittingly, degraded and destroyed by global and national developments. It is now in a precarious situation. Geologically, it is said to be seriously unstable. The local economy is in a shambles. Tea and agriculture are stagnant. Youth are unemployed or underemployed. Indigenous culture is fast dying.
