New legislation soon to protect paddy fields: Minister

Thiruvananthapuram, Mar 12 (UNI) Kerala Revenue Minister K P Rajendran told the Assembly today that a new legislation would be brought to plug all loopholes in the Kerala Land Utilisation Act to strictly check conversion of paddy fields for other purposes.

Replying to a Calling Attention motion by Mr B Raghavan (CPI-M), he said such a legislation was necessary to protect the remaining paddy fields and sought people's cooperation to discourage filling of paddy fields.

Mr Rajendran said paddy fields lying uncultivated would be taken over and entrusted to farmers' organisations and Kudumbashri units for cultivation.

Replying to another Calling Attention by Mr V K Ebrahim Kunju (IUML), Public Works Minister T U Kuruvilla said construction of a new bridge parallel to the existing Venduruthy bridge in Kochi, which was damaged when a dredger hit one of its piers, was in progress.

A sum of Rs 12 crore had already been spent for the construction of Rs 37-crore bridge, which had to be equally shared by the Public Works Department, the Navy and the Cochin Port Trust (CPT), he said, adding immediate steps would be taken to get the shares of the Navy and the CPT.

Replying to a submission by Mr K C Venugopal (Cong), Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan said a total of 1,854 vacancies in government services had been reported to the State Public Service Commission for recruitment during May-November, 2006.

He said strict action would be taken against heads of departments if they did not report vacancies to the PSC as and when they arose.

Industries Minister Elamaram Kareem told Mr M Prakasan Master (CPI-M) that efforts were on to acquire land for a container freight station to be set up by the Central Warehousing Corporation in Kannur.

UNI