Wayanad landslides: Bhupender Yadav says Kerala allowed illegal mining

Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav on Monday blamed the Kerala government for the devastating landslides in Wayanad that claimed over 200 lives, accusing it of “allowing” illegal habitation and mining in the highly-sensitive area.

“We feel it’s purely their (state government) mistake. There has been illegal habitation and mining activity going on under the protection of the local government. It is very shameful. They must protect nature and human lives,” Yadav told reporters in New Delhi.

“It is an illegal protection by local politicians of the illegal habitation. Even in the name of tourism, they are not making proper zones. They allowed encroachment of this highly-sensitive area,” Yadav said.

 

The minister said that the Union government has already constituted a committee headed by former director general of forests Sanjay Kumar to study the eco-sensitive zone. The ministry also alleged that the state government is not providing details to the committee.

The minister also released a list of projects that received Stage-I or Stage-II approvals in Kerala and Wayanad district over the last 10 years, revealing that the state government approved 5 out of the total 6 projects. The Union government only granted Stage-I approval to one project. Additionally, the ministry released a list of four projects that were granted environmental clearance in the past three years.

Yadav also said that the state government ignored the draft notification issued pertaining to the fragile Western Ghats. The environment ministry has issued six draft notifications, including one issued on July 31, to declare over 56,800 square kilometres of the Western Ghats across six states, including villages in Kerala's landslide-hit Wayanad, Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA), inviting suggestions and objections within 60 days.

The minister’s comments came after opposition leaders, including the Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, demanded that the devastating Wayanad landslides be declared a national disaster.

Rahul is also a member of parliament from the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat. He won the seat in 2024 with 59.69 per cent votes. He also represented the constituency in 2019.

However, the BJP countered the Opposition's demand, stating that there is no provision to declare a natural disaster as a natural disaster. BJP leader V. Muraleedharan posted on his Facebook page a 2013 Parliament document in which the then minister of state for home Mullappally Ramachandran stated, “There is no provision to declare a natural disaster as a national disaster.”

On Saturday, BJP MP Tejasvi Surya also blamed encroachment in the area, claiming the state government was not acting due to pressure from religious groups. “What has happened in Wayanad is not a natural disaster,” Surya said.

He called the disaster a “Communist-Congress made disaster.”

The Union government, however, is expecting state governments to participate in gathering details pertaining to eco-sensitive zones.

The government is awaiting a report from the newly-constituted Sanjay Kumar panel tasked with finalising the draft notification to officially earmark the eco-sensitive areas (ESA) in the Western Ghats, Yadav had said in a Rajya Sabha session in December.

The environment ministry, based on the Kasturirangan Committee report, had published a draft notification in 2014, identifying the ESAs and suggesting measures for their protection.

Due to objections from several states, a new panel was set up 12 years after the Madhav Gadgil Committee and a decade after the Kasturirangan Committee submitted their respective reports. The new panel was expected to submit the report last year, but it has sought more time.

The minister emphasised that conserving the Western Ghats is crucial for the country's ecology. The Western Ghats span 16,000 square kilometres across six states — Gujarat, Goa, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala — and host more than 4,000 plant species, comprising 27 per cent of the country's total plant varieties.