WAYANAD SURVIVORS FACE APATHY

Having lost their all in the 2024 landslides, the needle moves slowly as the Centre and state play politics over relief

- By Jeemon Jacob

IT WAS ON JULY 30, 2024, IN THE pitch dark before dawn, that hell and high water came hurtling down on a serene corner of Wayanad.

Two villages, Mundakkai and Chooralmala, were wiped off the map. Some 298 lives were stubbed out, 35 others could not be traced. Over a year later, Kerala is battling to stave off a disaster of another kind. At its centre is an empty space: nothing has yet filled the blanks nature left on those high ranges. State succour has been a slow-moving mirage, till now. Reason: the animus between Kerala and New Delhi.

The irony is that politics, often the nemesis of the rational and humane path, may yet offer some redemption. Kerala is due for an assembly election by May 2026, and the unfinished Wayanad rehabilitation would constitute a big blot on the Pinarayi Vijayan government if the situation is not amended soon. The incentive is high, therefore, to put the spurs on a 'Wayanad Model Village' project currently under construction. It was in February this year, after six months of frustrating negotiations with the Centre, that the LDF government announced that it would finance the rehabilitation substantially on its own, earmarking Rs 750 crore for it.

MODEL TO REALITY