Mangaluru: Citing a fatal landslide in Uttara Kannada in 2024 which claimed several lives, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) state unit has demanded a stringent law to regulate what it termed as “uncontrolled and unscientific hill cutting” across Karnataka.Addressing reporters on Wednesday, AAP state vice-president Vivekananda Salins said the landslide was triggered by unscientific excavation works carried out by the NHAI, and alleged that despite the scale of the disaster, no official or institution has been held accountable so far. He alleged that the govt has failed to learn lessons from past incidents, citing a similar devastating landslide in Kodagu four years ago.He blamed extreme rainfall driven by climate change and excessive excavation by private and govt entities for ruining the ecologically sensitive coastal and Western Ghats regions, while local administrations remain inactive.Urging Karnataka to adopt Goa’s environmental model of declaring vulnerable villages as “No-development zones,” Salins demanded a comprehensive law to regulate hill cutting, the penalisation of negligent officials to ensure personal accountability, and mandatory scientific safety assessments by an independent expert committee.In its release, the party demanded state govt enactment of a strict law to regulate hill cutting, initiation of stringent legal action against erring officials, contractors and private entities with provisions for personal accountability, and scientific assessment of landslide-prone areas through an independent expert committee with mandatory safety guidelines.We cannot accept a situation in which we wake up only after another disaster occurs every monsoon, the release added.
