Lodge owner asks Ayyankuzhi families to vacate as oil firm stops paying rent 

Over a hundred people, including children and patients, from around 30 families at Ayyankuzhi, located near the BPCL-KR campus at Ambalamugal, are on the verge of being evicted from a lodge at Chottanikkara in Ernakulam after the oil company ceased covering their accommodation and food expenses, and the lodge owner declined to host them any longer.

The families were shifted to the lodge by the district administration at the expense of BPCL-KR, following a stiff protest in the wake of a fire breakout in the Kerala State Electricity Board’s 220kV cables from the Brahmapuram substation, passing through an underground duct on the BPCL-KR campus on July 8. Since then, BPCL-KR has given a letter to the district administration, saying that it had volunteered to bear the expenses on humanitarian grounds at best for a couple of days, and that they are backing out of the commitment with effect from August 26.

After families declined to move out, the lodge owner on Thursday stuck a notice stating that the lodge would be closed for annual maintenance with immediate effect, which, the families alleged, was a pressure tactic to get them evicted by switching off power supply and disconnecting water supply shortly.

“Our request that space be allowed to cook food has also been turned down by the lodge owners. Isn’t denial of food to children and patients, including dialysis patients and pregnant women, a human rights violation? The disaster management authorities have failed to contact us but instead have asked us to attend a meeting to discuss our fate at the collectorate tomorrow [Friday]. We have no plan to vacate the lodge unless the district administration, which put us up in the lodge, explicitly asks us to do so,” said Saji Kumar, convener of Ayyankuzhi Janakeeya Samithi.

Families are also set to move a detailed petition before the State Human Rights Commission on their plight arising from the alleged pollution after initially approaching the rights panel over the alleged unauthorised filling of a waterbody in their neighbourhood.

The district administration sources admitted to the stalemate while also expressing helplessness about any possible intervention to resolve the crisis. “We hardly have anything to do as it is for the government to issue any direction,” said the sources.

Families had declined to return to their homes, citing multiple reports by the Pollution Control Board, including the latest after the recent fire incident, notifying the area as unfit for living. Instead, they have been insisting that their nearly 10 acres be acquired by BPCL-KR, while also threatening to stage a protest if any attempt was made to forcefully shift them back to their homes before their demand was met.

BPCL-KR, on its part, had clarified that it could not continue bearing the accommodation expense of nearly ₹1 lakh a day indefinitely. Neither has there been any progress following a Chief Secretary-level meeting at which BPCL-KR was urged to proactively consider the acquisition of the land on the grounds of pollution.