A publicly funded forest office project in Palakkad has come under scrutiny after the NGO ANEC Trust sought an independent inquiry into alleged procedural, financial and administrative irregularities linked to changes in the building plan and the proposed demolition or modification of record rooms.
The petition concerns the construction of the Eastern Circle office building at Aranyabhavan in Olavakkode. The project was funded by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), according to the report. ANEC Trust submitted its urgent petition to L Chandrasekhar, additional principal chief conservator of forests responsible for forest management, finance, budget and allotment, at the forest headquarters in Thiruvananthapuram.
The trust has questioned a proposal to accommodate the wildlife circle office in a building that was sanctioned for the Eastern Circle office and the custodian of vested forests. It has sought clarification on whether the proposed change in the building’s intended use received prior written approval from the government and NABARD.
According to the petition, the approved plan included dedicated record rooms, a conference hall and other essential facilities. ANEC Trust has alleged that the contractor was verbally instructed to demolish or modify record rooms that had already been completed to facilitate the proposed changes. The allegation has not been established through an independent inquiry in the material available for this report.
The record rooms are intended to store more than 3,000 old and ongoing case files and vested forest records. These include documents connected to litigation dating back to 1974 before forest tribunals, the Kerala High Court and the Supreme Court. The trust has warned that inadequate storage could compromise document security and affect ongoing legal proceedings.
ANEC Trust has asked the authorities to suspend any demolition or modification work until the original project sanction, approved plans, estimates and relevant permissions are verified. The demand places the project within a wider administrative question: whether a publicly funded building can be assigned a materially different institutional use without documented approval from the agencies that sanctioned and financed it.
The petition has also sought scrutiny of a potential conflict of interest, citing reports that the heads of the Eastern Circle and Wildlife Circle are spouses. The trust has asked authorities to verify compliance with applicable service rules and administrative procedures, while stating that the responsibility of the officials should not be prejudged.
The NGO has additionally urged an objective assessment of the office-space requirements of the concerned units and the availability of alternatives. One option identified in the petition is space that may become available after the relocation of the Working Plan Division. The next step sought by the trust is an official review of the sanctioned project documents, proposed changes and permissions before any further work affecting the record rooms is undertaken.
