1 REPORT ON CRZ VIOLATIONS IN KOLLAM DISTRICT 1. INTRODUCTION As per the direction of Supreme Court to prepare the list of violations against CRZ Notification across the State, Government of Kerala vide Order No G.O (Rt) No 98/2017/Envt. dated Thiruvananthapuram, 16/10/2019 (Annexure 1) have constituted Coastal District Committees (CDC) for ten coastal districts including the district of Kollam with District Collector as Chairman and District Town Planner as Convener for preparing the list of violations against CRZ Notification. All the concerned local body secretaries and Village officers are the members. Accordingly, the first meeting of CDC, Kollam was convened on 24.10.2019 and an Action Plan for collection and compilation of list of CRZ violations was discussed and decided. (Minutes of first meeting is enclosed as Annexure II.) As neither guidelines nor prescribed formats for the collection of list of violations against CRZ Notification were provided, it is decided in the first CDC meeting to collect the details in two phases. In the first phase, the focus was to collect location wise (i.e., survey number wise) number of CRZ violations in every village included in CRZ Notification. Category of violations such as residential, commercial etc. and land development were also to be identified. In the second phase details such as name and address of owners, status of owners, distance to the violations from HTL, area of construction/land etc. of identified CRZ violations were to be collected. Accordingly, Ist,, IInd and IIIrd Interim Report on CRZ violations were prepared based on the formats (Annexure III) issued to all concerned local bodies and the reports were submitted to the Chief Secretary to Government on due dates viz.31-10-19, 30-11-19 and 20-12-19 respectively. Immediately after the submission of IInd Interim Report, second meeting of CDC was convened on 02-12-19 (Minutes enclosed as Annexure IV) and the convenor had made a presentation on the reports submitted to the government and deficiency of data submitted by each local body. In order to collect details from the local body and preparation of report effectively, the Regional Joint Director (RJD) and Deputy Director of Panchayat (DDP) were also invited to CDC as nominee of the chairman. They were also present in the IInd CDC meeting. Future course of action was also decided in the meeting. Further to the second meeting of CDC a training programme was conducted on 10-12-19 by Kerala Coastal Zone Management Authority (KCZMA) on CRZ violations and CRZ notifications, in which it was pointed out that the cut of date for reporting CRZ CRZ VIOLATIONS KOLLAM C D C KOLLAM 2 violations may be 28-02-19 as the new CZMP was approved on that date. It was also told that the violations prior to 28-02-2019 are to be identified with respect to old CZMP i.e. CZMP, 1996. Though KCZMA has prepared a new proforma including Latitude and Longitude values, secretaries of local bodies with large number of CRZ violations had informed that they are not able to collect such information within a short span of time. Hence in consultation with Chairman of CDC the members were directed to submit the details by 16-12-2019 in the old proforma itself with segregation of data prior and after 28-02-2019, buildings which are constructed before 1996 and permissible constructions as per CRZ notification. However, only some of the members had provided such details. As most of the local bodies could not provide the required information fully, the compilation and analysis of CRZ violations with respect to locations, floor area, type, CRZ category etc. were done based on the available data. 2. Hearing on published interim report- an overview Immediately after the submission of IIIrd Interim Report to the government, ie on 21/12/2019 it is published in the website of District Collector Kollam (https://kollam.nic.in) for inviting comments/suggestion/opinion. Press release were also made on major Malayalam dailies on 22.12.2019 and 30.12.2019 (Annexure V)about the publication and the public were asked to submit their comments/suggestion/opinion via e-mail or in writing (A special mail address was opened for the same - [email protected]). 25 objections/suggestions were obtained in this regard. A hearing was organized by CDC for those who submitted comments/suggestion/opinion on 03.01.2020. The details of comments/suggestion/opinion, secretaries remarks and decision of CDC is enclosed as Annexure VI. After considering comments/suggestion/opinion and additional violation due to the inclusion of building completed without the approval of KCZMA and came up before the District Level Coastal Zone Management Authority, the total number of CRZ violation reported in the District is found as 4867 nos. This final report of CRZ violation in Kollam district contains an overview of CRZ in the District and analysis of CRZ violation with respect administrative boundaries and conclusion based on available data. It is to be noted that no field visit and / or ground visits were made from the office of the convener and the report is prepared entirely based on the data provided by other CDC members. On hearing of objection/opinion it is notice to that some traditional coastal community who were rehabilitated for government activities such as mining of India Rare Earth Ltd. CRZ VIOLATIONS KOLLAM C D C KOLLAM 3 (IRE), widening of TS Canal – National Water way 3 are facing problems. They were staying in authorized houses. But when they were rehabilitated, they purchased vacant land in CRZ III where construction of new building is not allowed. Also some houses built under government scheme for fisherman are not legal. These issues are to be given special attention as the CRZ norms are for local inhabitants and rehabilitated ones depends on the coast for their livelihood. 3. CRZ in Kollam District- an overview Kollam being situated along the side of Lakshadweep sea,many back waters and rivers are included as tide influenced water bodies. Major tide affected water bodies other than the sea are Ashtamudi kayal, Vattakayal, Kozhikode kayal, Kayamkulam kayal, Kottackayal, Edava Nadayara Kayal, Paravoor Kayal, KalladaAr, PallickkalAr, IthikkaraAr and other back waters with local names which are part of major back waters and other tributaries of main rivers. TS Canal, a man made water body is also coming under CRZ.As per the approved Coastal Zone Management Plan, 2019 (CZMP,2019) prepared based on CRZ notification 2011, 29 local bodies in the district falls under CRZ in Kollam District. The entire CRZ in Kollam District is spreading over 4 Taluksviz. Kollam, Karunagappally, Kottarakkara and Kunnathur and 44 villages within the district. The list of local bodies and villages coming under CRZ is enclosed as Annexure VII and the administrative boundaries (Taluk, Village, Local bodies) are shown in figure 1. Figure 1 Administrative divisions in CRZ Total extent of CRZ in Kollam other than CRZ IV which is the area of water body up to 12 nautical miles from Low Tide Line in the case of Sea and area of tide affected water body from the mouth of water body at sea and up to the location where the salinity CRZ VIOLATIONS KOLLAM C D C KOLLAM 4 is measured as 5 ppm is 63.95 sq.km. Except mangrove and its buffer zone, Inter Tidal Zone and rock beach in Kollam Municipal Corporation (KMC) in CRZ 1A and 1B, all other CRZ in Kollam Corporation, Paravoor and Karungapally Municipalities are designated as CRZ II. The total extent of CRZ II in the District is 16.92 sq .km. CRZ III (in 26 Grama Panchayaths shown in Annexure VII) has a total extent of 35.95 sq.km of which 33.41 sq.km falls in the No Development Zone (NDZ). The extent of CRZ III between 200m and 500m along sea cost is 2.54 sq.km. CRZ IV of the district covers over an area of 73.13 sq.km and CRZ IA and IB together constitute 8.97 sq.km whereas the mangrove buffer zone is only 2.11 sq.km. Table 1 TALUK WISE DISTRIBUTION OF CRZ CATEGORIES IN KOLLAM ) ) ) 2 2 2 ) ) 2 2 (km (km2 ) Taluk (km ) ) (km 2 2 HTL Seacoast (km ) (km) HTL Creek Mangrove (km CRZIA Mangrove Buffer Zone (km ITZ IB CRZ (km Beach Rocky IBCRZ II CRZ NDZ III ) CRZ b/w200 500m & (km IV CRZ Karunagapally 25.42 251.23 .41 .99 2.2. 0 1.44 13.33 2.39 10.77 Kollam 29.94 450.61 0.47 1.12 5.64 0.01 15.48 16.85 0.15 61.12 Kottarakkara 0 9.86 0 0 0.03 0 0 0.79 0 0.32 Kunnathur 0 25 0 0 0.21 0 0 2.44 0 0.92 Total 55.36 736.70 0.88 2.11 8.08 0.01 16.92 33.41 2.54 73.13 As per CZMP 1996 which is prepared and approved based on CRZ notification 1991, which was valid up to 28-02-2019, Karunagappally Municipality and the area added to the then Kollam Municipality was under CRZ III. Also Kunnathur, Nedumpana, Paithreswaram and ThevalakkaraGrama Panchayaths were not included in CZMP, 1996. 4. CRZ VIOLATIONS Total number of CRZ violations after considering comments/suggestion/opinion is found as 4,867 which include CRZ violations made after 28/2/2019. It is to note that no site inspection and verification was made by the CDC for ensuring the authenticity of data CRZ VIOLATIONS KOLLAM C D C KOLLAM 5 provided by the local bodies and the Report on CRZ violations is solemnly a consolidation and analysis of data submitted by the secretaries of concerned local bodies and the decisions taken by the CDC after hearing the comments/suggestions/opinion.