The Nilgiris district administration’s statements on reducing landslip-prone locations ‘dangerous’ and ‘misleading’: NDC

Account subscription benefits alongside Premium Stories, Editorials, Opinions and more. Unlock these with Subscription The View From India Looking at World Affairs from the Indian perspective. First Day First Show News and reviews from the world of cinema and streaming. Today's Cache Your download of the top 5 technology stories of the day. Data Point Decoding the headlines with facts, figures, and numbers Health Matters Ramya Kannan writes to you on getting to good health, and staying there The Hindu On Books Books of the week, reviews, excerpts, new titles and features. The Nilgiri Documentation Center (NDC) has termed the district administration’s statements on the number of landslip-prone areas as ‘misleading’ and ‘dangerous’ after Collector Lakshmi Bhavya Tanneeru said on Monday that the number of such locations identified has been reduced to 156 from the initial number of 283. Venugopal Dharmalingam, honorary director of the NDC, said the blame for the ‘unscientific’ assessment by the Revenue Department, which had arrived at the earlier figure, was ‘unfortunate.’ In January 2025, the Nilgiris Collector deposed before the National Green Tribunal that ‘a nine-member technical expert committee’ had identified 283 locations in the district prone to landslides due to the heavy rainfall during the southwest and northeast monsoons. She further stated that the committee was constituted to carry out the study in the Nilgiris district. The study was in fact conducted by The Nilgiris District Disaster Management Agency and Revenue and Disaster Management Department in 2024, he said, questioning why these agencies were commissioned for the study if they lacked the competency to do so. He also said that quoting the Geological Survey of India (GSI) study for the reduction in numbers was misleading. “The GSI study has only identified 156 ‘highly’ vulnerable locations from the list of vulnerable spots. “This only means that the preparedness should be more at these locations,” he said, adding that the GSI in its first report in 1982 had said “The stage of preventing environmental degradation in the Nilgiris district has been crossed over. The harm has been done. The present stage is one of repairing the damage. It is fundamental that the cost of repair or cure is always more than the cost of prevention.” He said that the ‘manipulation’ of numbers will not only lead to reduced preparedness in case of disasters, but will also encourage development in areas by the ‘real estate mafia to plunder The Nilgiris,’ calling for the administration to make the GSI