With a view to ensuring a smooth flow of pilgrims visiting Sabarimala during this season the Vigilance Department has been taking steps to ensure that they were not harassed at the various Check posts when entering the State.
Based on reports that bribes were being collected to permit vehicles that did not follow norms, a sting operation was carried out by officials at the Motor Vehicle Department (MVD) on the night of 19th December 2022 at the border check post at Kumily.
A vigilance official drove a vehicle carrying pilgrims to the MVD check post. The Assistant Motor Vehicle Inspector on duty demanded a bribe of a thousand rupees from the Vigilance Officer who was in disguise and the official gave the bribe as demanded. Immediately, a team of Vigilance Officials swooped on the check post and unearthed money after which they booked the trespassers. Furthermore, a medical examination revealed that the officials who were on duty at the check post were intoxicated.
A massive purple yam (Dioscorea Alata) was harvested by a farmer named Shoji Mathew from his land in Chellarkovil which is about eleven kilometres from Kumily Town.
Three yams were harvested from a single plant with each one of them being about three feet in length. Shoji used a few farmhands who spent about four days bringing out the Yam.
The results of a Research Study published in the journal “Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems” mentions that cardamom (Scientific name: Elletteria cardamom) is more climate sensitive than coffee. The 40% reduction in rainfall did not affect coffee production during 2017–2018 while the cardamom crop output was reduced by nearly 50%.
The study based on long-term climate data from the States of South India mentions that Climate Change will greatly affect production of Cardamom while coffee too will be affected to a lesser extent and is not so climate sensitive as cardamom.
The study also revealed that the population the indigenous forest trees is rapidly declining as they are very ancient and on the verge of elimination. Since the local trees including Karana and Cedar are more susceptible to wind damage, the study also recommended increasing the variety and density of the trees to maintain the shade level required for the crops. Since Cardamom Cultivation is quite popular in and around the Kumily region we request all members of our community to plant more trees and participate actively in tree planting campaigns.
We at Kumily Calling are proud that the National Cadet Corps’ (NCC) first and only airstrip in the country is ready to receive small aircrafts for training of its air wing cadets.
A Virus SW 80 two seater light aircraft landed at the Satram airstrip, near Vandiperiyar in Idukki District on Thursday the 1st December 2022. The aircraft started the trial flight from the naval airport in Cochin around 9.30 a.m. and landed successfully on its third attempt at Sathram airstrip around 10.30 am. The same day.
The Aircraft was piloted by Commanding Officer A G Sreenivasan of the NCC 1st Kerala Air Squadron, Thiruvananthapuram and co-piloted by Captain Udaya Ravi of the NCC 3rd Kerala Air Squadron, Cochin.
The airstrip has been constructed by the State Public Works Department (PWD) and is 650 metres long .A hangar which can accommodate four light aircraft along with an accommodation facility for student pilots has been made at the local CSI High School building.
Peermade MLA Vazhoor Soman remarked that the day marked a new beginning for Idukki. Though the airstrip has been built to provide flight training to NCC cadets, Water Resources Minister Roshy Augustine said it could also be utilised for tourism in future.
While the Politicians were celebrating the moment, local environmentalists said the flight landing has been conducted in violation of the Supreme Court order issued on 3rd June this year banning all development activities in the one-km buffer zone around national parks and wildlife sanctuaries. The airstrip is situated about 660 metres away from the boundary of Periyar Tiger Reserve and authorities appear to have not obtained sanctions from the National Tiger Conservation Authority and the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change.
The Idukki and Cheruthoni dams has now been thrown open to the public for the Christmas and New Year seasons throughout the week except on all Wednesdays for routine inspection and monitoring of the dam.
Our Irrigation Minister Roshy Augustine announced on Wednesday that the public will be allowed only until January 31, 2023. The entry fee for adults will be rupees forty and for children will be rupees twenty only. Visiting hours are from 09.30 hours to 17.00 hours only. Buggy car facilities are being arranged on the roadway atop the dam at rupees six hundred for a group of eight visitors to travel on the dam. The Idukki Wildlife Sanctuary has also arranged boating facilities from Vellappara.
Entrance to the dam will be through the Paremavu side on the Cheruthoni-Thodupuzha road. The visitors will have to walk a total of six kilometres up and down while visiting the Cheruthoni dam, the Idukki Arch Dam and the Vaishali Caves.
Please note that visitors will be prohibited from carrying mobile phones, cameras, and other electronic equipment. Any form of recording including photography and video are prohibited on the premises of the dam.
The Kerala Forest Department has sent official communication to the Idukki District Collector mentioning its plans to declare Engineer Mettu at Kallippara, the location where the Neelakurinji (Strobilanthes kuthiana) bloomed recently, as a reserve forest.
The Neelakurinji Season between October – November in the Kallippara hills has now ended and the flowers have withered away but the arrival of tourists to this awesome landscape continues. Even without the Neelakurinji bloom the Tourists are attracted by the spectacular views all around.
The Kallippara hills in Idukki also known as Engineer Heights (Mett) is about 60 kilometres away from Kumily and is used as a base camp for all tourist activity in and around the area. The Kallippara Hills are located in Santhanpara Gram Panchayat of Kerala’s Idukki district on the Munnar-Kumily State Highway.
According to the Forest Department, the reasons behind the move is to protect the ecologically vital Kallippara hills in the Western Ghats which is an area under the Cardamom Hill Reserve (CHR). The land here is unsuitable for agriculture, say Forest officials. The proposal sent to the Collector also mentions that six varieties of Neelakurinji and some rare species of plants grow in the area.
However, the residents of the area point out that the state government had earlier filed an affidavit before the High Court which said that the area was not covered under CHR.
Such disputes also prevail in other areas between the Forest and Revenue Departments of the State Government. As a result, anxiety prevails among the local residents over the status of the land owned by them.
According to the Santhanpara Panchayat Office Staff, Neelakurinji bloomed in vast patches on the Kallippara hills from the beginning of October. It is roughly estimated that over 10 lakh people flocked to the hills during October 2022. The Panchayat President Liju Varghese mentioned that with the ending of the blooming season the local body has closed the ticket counter but the tourists are continuing to visit the Kallippara hills.
It was being proposed that the Kallippara hills will developed as a tourism destination and a memorandum was to be submitted to the District Collector in this regard. It has been reported that Tourist footfalls generated a revenue of Rs.15,03,180 lakhs during this blooming season.
During the weeks when the flowers bloomed on the hills, the Forest Department had deployed its employees in the area for crowd control and to provide security. Subsequently, the Forest authorities demanded a share of the entry fees collected by the panchayat and the same was rejected by the panchayat. In the light of this, local residents believe that the latest move of the Forest Department to declare the area as reserve forest was to get back at the panchayat.
