Socio-cultural Processes and Livelihood Patterns at Tirurangadi - CDS

een going on for several years. The efforts to solve the water-logging problem in
valiyachalli met with technical and social difficulties. A stream called manthodu,
connected the two challis, and a scheme was prepared to take the excess water from
valiya challi via manthodu into the river, and the scheme was met with stiff resistance
from the cultivators of cheriya challi as they argued that the scheme would result in their
fields becoming logged. As a result the scheme could not be implemented, and cultivators
had encroached the area acquired for the renovation of manthodu, which made the
construction of the thodu itself impossible. Flow of rainwater, indicated earlier brought
more water into Valiyachalli, which resulted in the field being transformed into a
perennial water pool. .
Along with land conversions, habitations are also spreading in the low-lying regions.
Nearly all the pallyals have been converted into house-sites, one example being the
chiramukku- Tirurangadi road, which passes through a Pallyal and houses have come up
on both sides of the road. Kottanthalappatam, being converted into a paramba has a
number of house- sites, with houses built on what were previously grain fields.
Nedunparamba, mentioned earlier, is now filled with houses. Large shopping sites, built
on extraordinarily strong foundations are being erected on what were water-logged,
muddy areas, in Palathingal. Normally the tendency has been to build houses and other
buildings on hard, sometimes, rocky surfaces, but pressure on land appears to have
played a role in the conversion of low-lying regions to building sites. Conversions are
taking place also on what were previously woody regions. Pothunkuzhikkad in
Vallikkunnu is a typical example. The natural vegetation area appears to have been
converted into parambas, and now it is a large inhabited area with a number of houses,
with the ‘woods’ hardly seen. Chuzhali close to the river in Munniyur, where the river
takes a winding path, and flows along three sides, has been another woody region. It is
now converted into a coconut and areca region with houses everywhere.