Giving a relief to maintaining the Golf course at the Golf Club here, the Kerala Water Authority (KWA) which had sent a disconnection notice to the Golf Club for failing to pay the arrears to the tune of Rs 18 lakh, has decided not to go ahead with the disconnection procedures.  The KWA has now decided to intimate the higher authorities and also the government regarding the arrears and disconnecting the service.

The KWA on November 27 served a notice on the Golf Club seeking payment of water charge arrears, stating that the service will be disconnected within five days. The club has to pay to the tune of Rs 18.78 lakh to the Water Authority, the dues from July 2003 to October 2013.

KWA officials said that it has left with the higher authorities and the government to decide on the disconnection issue. They said that the notice has been served on a routine basis. However, no payment has been made till now with respect to the arrears, they said.

Though the arrears have accumulated over the years, the major part of the arrears were before the Golf course was taken over by the government in 2010. The club members maintain that the club was only liable to pay the arrears before the government’s takeover of the course. Moreover, they alleged that the KWA had not bothered to fix the faulty meter so that the actual consumption of water can be calculated as per a High Court directive three year ago.  The present water connection is the only one left now in the Golf course after the KWA disconnected two of the other connections earlier for non-payment of the arrears. An amount of Rs 84,66,774 and Rs 58,05,120 has come as water charge arrears as on February 21, 2013, for the two disconnected services.

The arrears for the water connections had accumulated over the years even before the government took over the course in 2010.

The Thiruvananthapuram Corporation has served show cause notices on 11 tourist resorts in the Vizhinjam area for violating Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) norms.

 The 11 resorts are among the 31 identified by an expert panel of the Coastal Zone Management Authority as having violated CRZ norms, Additional Chief Secretary (Local Self-Government and Ports) James Varghese said on Tuesday. Of the 11, eight are in the area identified for the Vizhinjam International Container Transshipment Terminal (ICTT) project.

 ‘’Although 31 resorts were identified in all, only 11 fall within the jurisdiction of the Corporation. So the Corporation has issued show cause notices as to why they should not be demolished,’’ he said.

 The eight resorts have been in the eye of a storm ever since the government planned to acquire the land for the Vizhinjam project. Last month, the CZMA expert panel submitted its recommendations, which said that 31 resorts in the region had come up violating CRZ norms. On their part, the resort owners had charged the government with a witch-hunt.

 Ports Minister K Babu said on Tuesday that the government needed the land for connecting two back-up areas for the project. Compensation will be provided for the land, but not for constructions as they exist in violation of norms. The government will also give shape to a Rs 1.4-crore compensation package for the employees of the resorts.

 ‘’Altogether, in these eight resorts, there are only 50 rooms. Should we sacrifice a big project for their sake?’’ asked  Babu here on Tuesday, while announcing that the Vizhinjam ICTT project had obtained environmental clearance from an expert panel of the Ministry of Environment and Forests.

 According to the government, there are components in the ICTT project which will boost tourism. The major proposal in this regard is a cruise terminal planned at the port. Minister of State for HRD Shashi Tharoor said that the port project will, in fact, boost tourism rather than hamper it.