A few months ago, I was traveling along the old Neriamangalam Road to Munnar for some work. This route is not new to me, I have been taking it for years. But recently, I noticed something that’s been troubling me: road expansion work has begun. It seems to have started a few months back, and I find myself both confused and deeply concerned. What is the real purpose of this project?
The government claims it’s due to the rising number of tourists and travelers. Traffic congestion, especially on weekends, has become common as people flock to Munnar. It’s true, there is sometimes a block. The road is narrow, and when vehicles come from both directions, you need to slow down or wait. Yes, it can be inconvenient, but that’s the nature of a mountain road. The hairpin bends demand caution, not convenience. This road, in fact, was already one of the best possible alignments we could have made, causing minimal damage to the breathtaking and ecologically sensitive terrain.
The place where this road winds through is incredibly delicate. On one side, you have steep gorges, and on the other, forest-covered hills. Munnar itself sits on fragile topography. Many parts of Idukki should ideally be off-limits to large-scale construction, but development goes on unchecked, as if it’s a city landscape.
We know how Munnar became a hotspot for tea plantations, mostly benefiting big companies who profit while the land pays the price. Keralites, in particular, are not unfamiliar with the land encroachment cases and corruption in Munnar. It has a long, controversial history. For most, Munnar is synonym of tea estates, but I have met people who remember a different Munnar, a more untouched one.
For example, an elderly man I met during one of my earlier trips recalled his childhood in Munnar, when the hills were draped in thick native forests. He spoke of elephants and sambars freely moving through dense groves, and waterfalls flowing where now we find tourist resorts. Another local woman once told me how the first tea estate displaced her family’s ancestral land. These stories are rarely heard but speak volumes.
The lush green forest hills have now been tamed into well-manicured tea estates. While they appear beautiful on the surface, it’s only the peripheral look of giant open-air factory, buzzing with daily transport and labor.
On my recent trip, I saw dozens of old trees cut down to make way for the new road. Their massive roots had been carelessly dumped by the side. I couldn’t help but think: how many decades had it taken for those trees to grow so strong? And how much soil had they been holding together on these vulnerable slopes? Without those roots, the risk of erosion is inevitable.
Ironically, the construction itself is now causing more traffic jams than before. Large trucks carrying gravel, tar, and materials have blocked most of the already-narrow passage. It’s frustrating, especially when the project seems endless. It may take years to finish. And for what? To reduce the wait time for some future travelers, while making life harder for those who use the road now?
Worse still, the livelihoods of small vendors and locals have been hit hard. Whenever a road is widened, we tend to focus only on the “development” side of the story. But what about the lives that come to a standstill?
For instance, a tea stall that had been operating on the roadside for nearly 20 years was demolished last month. That family had no other source of income. Another woman I spoke to had a small tailoring shop right by the curve of the old road, she lost both her shop and her home in the expansion. These are not isolated incidents; this is the human cost of development.
Even those who still live along the roadside are now exposed to increased noise, dust, and pollution. What were once serene little homes tucked into the hills are now at risk from everything, from landslides to reckless driving.
But the most alarming danger, in my eyes, is this, Munnar’s ecosystem was never built to handle this kind of intervention. The homes and cottages here are constructed on hillsides, often supported by artificial retainer walls, sections of the hill literally sliced to make space. But no man-made wall can match the power of nature’s own defense, the roots of ancient trees.
Those trees weren’t just part of the scenery, they held the soil together. They regulated the microclimate. They absorbed the heavy rains. Once gone, nothing holds the earth back. Last year’s monsoon was a warning. If we get another prolonged, intense spell of rain, much of what we see in Munnar today could be swept away.
To give a real example, last year, near Anayirankal, a section of road and adjoining houses collapsed after prolonged rainfall. It was revealed later that large trees had been removed from that slope a year prior for a resort project. No engineering could stop what the roots once held effortlessly.
And yet, in so many areas, there aren’t even proper barricades or safety structures. Monsoons are no longer predictable, they arrive late, linger longer, and rain with greater force. If a river decides to reclaim what we’ve taken from it, who can stop it?
There doesn’t seem to be a proper environmental study behind these decisions. If there were, no one would suggest widening this road. Even 20% of the current project budget could’ve been used to strengthen and maintain the existing roads. Instead of destroying the forest for faster travel, we could build better retaining walls, plant native trees, and simply allow tourism at a gentler pace.
Why do we go to Munnar anyway? To see nature’s beauty. If we destroy that, what’s left to see? And why do we need to rush? Shouldn’t the journey to such a place be slow, mindful, and respectful?
Alas, after witnessing the tragedies in Wayanad and elsewhere, it’s heartbreaking that we still repeat the same mistakes, for what? For money that exists only on paper. Remember, it won’t buy you a new life.