The Kerala government has published a revised Kuttampuzha Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA) map that completely excludes the village’s residential and tribal settlement areas from the proposal submitted to the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.
The map, released through the state government website, places 476.19 sq km of Kuttampuzha village within the proposed ESA. The area is classified as forest land, while 43.09 sq km identified as residential areas has been excluded from the total village area of 519.28 sq km.
The State Environment and Climate Change Department published the detailed proposal in a Keyhole Markup Language (KML) file on October 12. The file was made available for public information and contains the mapped details of the areas excluded from the proposal. The state government had earlier sent its recommendation on the extent of the ESA to the Centre.
Kuttampuzha village was the only area in Ernakulam district included when the Western Ghats ESA proposal was prepared. Residents had previously expressed concern that the village’s inhabited areas could be brought entirely within the ecologically sensitive zone. The revised map submitted by Kerala seeks to address that concern by excluding all identified residential areas.
The excluded areas include settlements such as Manikandanchal, Kallelimedu, Mamalakkandam and Inchathotty. The proposal also excludes tribal hamlets, including Kunchippara, Thalavachappara, Variyam, Thera, Uriyampetty and Vellaramkuthu. The state’s submission indicates that these inhabited areas have not been included within the proposed ESA boundary.
The development comes amid discussions between Kerala and a central team examining the state’s ESA proposal. The central team visited Kerala from July 14 to 16. On July 15, it held a meeting with Chief Minister V.D. Satheesan, ministers Shibu Baby John and Sunny Joseph, and senior officials from various departments, according to the report.
During that meeting, the state government was reported to have stated that Kerala’s proposed ecologically sensitive area should be limited to 8,590.69 sq km across 98 villages. However, the Union government issued a draft notification on July 27, before the central team submitted its report.
The latest Kuttampuzha map therefore represents the state’s current proposal to separate forest areas from inhabited locations in the village. Its publication makes the proposed boundary available for public examination, while the final decision on the ESA notification remains with the Union government.
