The forest fire that has claimed 17 lives so far found its echo in the Assembly today, with DMK saying swift action after a Forest Survey of India alert could have averted it and the Chief Minister saying government had not received it.
Leader of the Opposition in the assembly, M K Stalin, who moved a special call attention motion on the issue, said FSI had given warning about the Kurangani forest fire through SMS and e-mail.
"According to the FSI, if the Forest Department had acted swiftly, the loss of lives could have been averted," he said.
The DMK leader also demanded appointment of more forest field personnel as part of measures to prevent such mishaps.
He also urged the government to bring in norms, requiring trekking clubs to register themselves with FSI for forest fire alerts and added that such norms should be part of "licence conditions."
Chief Minister K Palaniswami however denied receiving any warning from the FSI and said that the trekkers were caught in the fire when they took an unauthorised trekking route and the blaze spread rapidly due to abundant lemon grass.
He said that according to the FSI report and "field features," the last time a forest fire was reported in the Kottakkudi Reserve Forest (under which the Kurangani hills ranges falls) was on February 15, 2018.
"This fire was doused by the Forest department. If this fire had not been doused, continuous alerts would have been received from FSI. In the past many days, no warning was received from that body on fire incidents in these areas," he said.
The two groups, totally comprising 36 trekkers, did not obtain any permission from authorities to trek to the Kurangani hills from Kozhukkumalai on March 11, he said.
"While trekking, unexpectedly they were caught in the forest fire," he said.
Though 12 persons from Erode and Tirupur had bought 12 entry tickets to go to 'Top Station' from Kurangani on March 10, they instead went to Kozhukkumalai tea estate and the validity of their tickets expired the same day, he said.
The group went there through the Kottukkadu Reserve Forest, which was not an authorised route, he said and added that the group stayed at the estate overnight.
Similarly, another group of 27 trekkers from Chennai reached Kurangani on March 10 and they too went to the Estate premises at Kozhukkumalai unauthorisedly travelling through the reserve forest area.
Of the 27 persons, three went to Kerala and the rest went for trekking, he said.
"The Theni District Collector has informed that the private Kozhukkumalai tea estate does not have permission to function as a rest house," he said.
Only the employees of the tea estate and local villagers are authorised to use the 7.1 kilometre tract through the Kottakkudi reserve forest area between Kurangani and Kozhukkumalai, the Chief Minister said.
There was no forest fire when both the groups reached Kozhukkumalai on March 10, he said.
Palaniswami also gave a detailed account of the action taken by the government to douse the fire and the operations to rescue the trekkers.
A forester was suspended and a case registered against a local man, G Ranjithkumar, for leading the trekkers through the reserve forest, the Chief Minister said.
For violations, police are taking action against Chennai Trekking Club and Erode based Tour de India. A top official, Atulya Misra, had been named as Inquiry Officer to submit a report on the incident within two months, Palaniswami said.
The toll in the forest fire has risen to 17 with an injured man succumbing at a hospital in Madurai yesterday.
Of the 36 persons caught in the forest fire, 17 died, 10 were rescued without any injuries and the rest are receiving medical treatment in hospitals.
Earlier, the assembly condoled the death of the fire mishap victims and made an obituary reference to five former MLAs, who passed away recently.
The members observed silence for a few moments.
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