MEGAMALAI

Megamalai is one the most beautiful hill station in

south India, but not a lot of people know about its beauty or even its existence.

As its name tells us (MEGAMALAI – “mega” means clouds and “malai” means

mountain ) it is the place where the clouds meet the mountain. Megamalai is

popularly known as High Wavys. It is located in the Western Ghats in Theni

district, Tamil Nadu, India.Megamalai is rich in flora and fauna this place is

located at an elevation of 1,500 m above the sea level. The temperature in

megamalai falls between 0*C and 25*C in summer it is between 15.2*C – 25*C

and in winter it is between 0*C – 10*C.

 I R.S.Aafreen student of Tamil Nadu National Law

School just completed my first year exam and went to Megamalai along with

family to relax. It took a minimum of 3 hours to cover just the 40 kms stretch.

Megamalai is dotted with cardamom plantation, tea estates and dams. Therefore

the majority people who live there are the estate workers and then the people

who are in charge of the dams, forest officers. There is no much facilities over

there t they are dependent on Chinnamannur which is 30 kms away from

Megamalai. The road condition was very bad when we reached Megamalai we

asked the people there about the road condition. They said that earlier at least

there was a worst road but now that worst road was removed to lay new Road. 

But the high Court bench has stayed the road laying work..
 The people in Megamalai cannot reach hospitals on

time due to poor road conditions. The road laying work was stopped by the

court at the last minute. Usually very heavy monsoons occur from july to

September. During the coming monsoon this road would get blocked since the

stones and soil which were removed to widen the road were left as such on the

road. Recently a lady delivered a baby while coming down to hospital in the

plain. The high court should vacate the stay order so that the road work can be

completed. . Because the people who live in Megamalai are dependent on

Chinnamannur for their basic needs like materials needed for cooking and stuffs

like that. If the monsoon attacks and even if a small landslide occurs and if the

road gets blocked then the people up will be stuck there and this will cause a lot

of problem to them.

The Forest department needs to regulate the

tourists. Police should be posted at Megamalai to control the youngsters coming

mostly from Chennai. They turned Megamalai into a party hall. They booze and

throw the bottles everywhere. They don't listen to the panchayat or forest

officials. At least one or two police officials should be posted to regulate these

uncontrollable tourists. A NGO known as Vanam has been working here and

the scientist informed that this organisation has been doing good work here to

protect the forest. He informed that the tourists should be sensitised so that their

activities for making fun will not harm the animals and the nature.The scientist
also told that he has been researching megamalai and its forests for two years

and he had found few animals which are news species. Those animals are found

nowhere else in the world. I was told that most of the children have to go to

plains for their education since the school at Megamalai is not managed

properly.

There are only two places where the

tourists can stay and both are located in scenic places where the animals used to

visit for drinking water. The inspection bungalow and tourist bungalow are

located near water sources. There are other two three tea estate bungalows but

only rich people stay there since they charge huge amount 6000-8000 per night

for two. The another problem I noticed there was the siren sound released by the

estates. They told me that it is a reminder for the estate workers to come back to

work this siren is been rang 4 to 5 times a day.These siren were used on the

olden days because the workers at those days didn’t have watches or phones

with them to check time. These days everyone have watch and cell phones to

check time. The siren sound released will disturb the animals in and around

megalmalai which will make them migrate from this place or will even make

them extinct because few animals are very allergic to noise pollution as proven

by a lot of scientists. Therefore I think this siren sound there should be banned
Dear Uncle, Kindly write an article on the above problems so that the court or

local administration would do something to protect the locals and the

environment.