Socio-cultural Processes and Livelihood Patterns at Tirurangadi - CDS

fertile, the uplands are rocky and scrubby and generally not productive. The following
table gives the areas classified as ‘waste land’ in the region.
village
Thenhippalam
Peruvallur
Munniyur
Tirurangadi
Barren/rocky/stony/
waste/sheet rock
area(in hectares)
-
43
-
27
Table LXX
Source: Land Use Board, Thiruvananthapuram
Undulating upland
With out without
scrub
64
138
43
54
64
181
43
81
total
.In overall terms the region is capable of supporting wetland cultivation on a large scale,
provided the tidal effect in the coastal area is reduced and adequate water management
techniques is introduced. As we have seen earlier, Mannittampara Anaicut and the new
cut in kalanthirutti have been efforts in this direction. However, water management is far
from being efficient and there are indications that the actual practice is proceeding in the
wrong direction. We have seen that the area was full of chenas, kulams, chiras, and
thodus. Now almost all the chenas in the elevated areas have disappeared and a few of
them exist only in name. Similarly chiras and ponds have either been destroyed or
rendered useless by dumping waste, or they have subject to sedimentation by which they
have been made into small pools.Challis in the elevated regions, which acted as natural
water harvesting resources have practically disappeared, and the remaining ones exist as
muddy pools. This means that elevated regions have lost their capacity for rain
harvesting; the entire rain water comes down creating the sediments mentioned earlier.
Since the thodus are getting flattened, they cannot be put to any use by the cultivators or
the settlers. In some places there has been a District Panchayat scheme to maintain the
thodus, but they do not seem to be based on any concept of environmental planning, and