The Kerala High Court has observed that it is the duty of the State Wetland Authority of Kerala (SWAK) to demarcate boundaries of the wetlands identified in the State and not the responsibility of local bodies.

The court made the observation recently while disposing of a writ petition filed by the Kalliyoor grama panchayat in Thiruvananthapuram challenging orders of the tribunal for local self-government institutions directing the panchayat to measure and demarcate the boundaries of the wetlands near Vellayani Lake and take a decision on plea by the persons residing on the land adjoining the wetland for building permits.

The court noted that a formal notification process of all wetlands in the State had not yet been completed and that the SWAK was apparently still in the process of collecting and collating the details.

When the petition came up for hearing, R. Gopan, counsel for the panchayat, submitted that the measurement and demarcation of wetland would fall within the competence of the SWAK and not within the powers of the panchayat. Therefore it could not identify and stipulate the prohibited distance of 50 metres from the mean high flood level of the lake observed in the past ten years from the date of commencement of the Wetland Rules 2017.

The court also directed the SWAK to take steps to expeditiously complete the demarcation of wetland boundaries near the lake. It ordered that the tribunal’s orders be kept in abeyance till the panchayat received information from the SWAK and take a decision on the applications for building permits based on it