Threat to revive ghost road to green haven

Aluva-Munnar Road

# Ajayan | A century ago, the cataclysmic floods of 1924 swept away the Aluva-Munnar Road, a rudimentary path once used to haul goods to the Munnar Hills in lumbering bullock carts. The British administration wisely chose to let the forest reclaim its realm, abandoning the idea of revival. The rulers of Travancore took a pragmatic path and thus carved the new path that in time evolved into today’s National Highway. Even the National Transport Planning and Research Centre (NATPAC) rejected a revival plan, following a 2005 study by the Kerala Forest Research Institute that underscored its ecological and logistical impracticalities.

The once-forgotten trail has transformed into a dense wilderness, home to Asiatic elephants, tigers and a thriving ecosystem of wildlife. KFRI scientists had, even two decades ago, highlighted the ecological richness that had taken root here. However, this pristine habitat faces a grave threat. A rising chorus for reviving the old road, with even the Church being dragged into it, casts a long shadow, threatening to exchange priceless forest wealth for the fleeting promises of so-called development under the guise of tourism.

During the catastrophic deluge of 1924 - etched in local memory as the Floods of 99 going by the Malayalam calendar - the entire stretch of the old road, then little more than a rugged horse track or cart road, was swept away. With restoration proving an insurmountable challenge, the rulers of Travancore, in 1926, embarked on the creation of a new route, complete with a bridge spanning the mighty Periyar at Neriyamangalam. This was opened to the public in 1931, paving the way for seamless travel. Over the decades, it evolved into what is now NH 85 where widening is on to accommodate the ever-growing tides of travellers.

Deep in the Western Ghats is Pooyamkutty which gained public interest in the 1980s with the proposal for a hydroelectric project to harness the Peendimedu Waterfalls. While the plan of a 1000-megawatt powerhouse was scaled down to 210 MW, the growing concerns of greens and even local communities saw the abandonment of the project saving the rainforest - a sanctuary of elephants, elusive tigers and an opulent tapestry of reeds. The reeds from there were earlier drifted downriver to the Veloor Newsprint Factory, passing through the Thattekkad Bird Sanctuary - an ecological marvel that had earned the admiration of India’s Birdman Salim Ali. With the passage of years and the advent of modern infrastructure and a network of bridges, the silent riverine transport gave way to the rumble of lorries.

Old Munnar Road

Over the years, as newer roads carved their way through the hills, ensuring ample connectivity, the yearning to resurrect the old route lingered in certain quarters. It was this quiet persistence that led the National Transport Planning and Research Centre (NATPAC) to commission the Kerala Forest Research Institute (KFRI) to undertake an environmental appraisal of two critical missing links through forest terrain - one of them being the long-abandoned Aluva-Munnar Road. In their 2005 report, KFRI scientists S Sankar and P Vijayakumaran Nair said the old alignment was cloaked in dense vegetation of trees and reed brakes, with no human habitation along it. Their assessment warned that reviving this route would cleave through nearly 400 sqkm  of unbroken forest in the Pooyamkutty valley, shattering one of the region’s last great green lungs. The Pooyamkutty–Perumbankuthu stretch received a damning environmental score of minus 64 - a clear red flag from science to ambition.

The report warned that the quality of landscape would be severely damaged if such a move was made. It had rated the environmental quality of the stretch as very high in terms of contiguity, floral and faunal diversity, wildlife habitat and stream density. Twenty years have passed and the forest has only grown denser.

Joy Kallivayalil, a retired PWD engineer well-acquainted with the terrain, suspects unseen hands orchestrating the sudden symphony for reopening the road. How else, he asks, does one explain the summoning of an 88-year-old bishop emeritus from the shadows of retirement to lend divine gravitas to a worldly cause? This road was destroyed in the deluge of 1924 and the British, with all their imperial will, did not think it wise to rebuild it. Today, Munnar lies well-stitched as far as connectivity is concerned. The fresh call for revival, however, threatens to unspool nature’s delicate embroidery, courting calamity under the guise of progress, he adds.

The new road will not pave the way for progress but rather bulldoze through the soul of Pooyamkutty’s rainforests, slicing the wilderness into ecological orphan islands, says environmentalist John Peruvananthanam. This is not about connecting people, but enriching the resort mafia who romanticize nature by day and ravage it by dusk. As forest cover dwindles and thirsting wildlife edges into human settlements, the conflict will get worse, he adds.

Aziz Kunnappilly, president of the environmental group Greenpeople, believes the growing push to reopen the old Aluva-Munnar road is guided less by public interest and more by the quiet agendas of those eyeing tourism and resort development. Far from benefiting the people of Munnar, the project threatens to unsettle the region’s delicate ecological balance, opening the door to heightened human-animal conflict and eroding what remains of its rich biodiversity.

He also dismantles the romanticized myth of royal grandeur tied to the old road which was a humble bullock cart trail, once used to ferry goods to and from the Kannan Devan Hills estates. In fact, after the floods of 1924 swept it away, it was the Travancore royal family that commissioned the construction of the present-day alternative - the route we now know as NH 85, weaving through Neriyamangalam and Adimali.