How a farmer's fight for paddy fields halted Lulu Group's massive project

The issue came into the spotlight after Lulu Group Chairman Yusuff Ali M A, a billionaire businessman, said that a Lulu Mall could not be built in his home district of Thrissur because a political party opposed.

Though he did not name the outfit, it soon became clear that it was the Communist Party of India (CPI), as its local leader, TN Mukundan, also a lifelong farmer, had filed the complaint against the Lulu Group for allegedly violating the Wetland Conservation Act of 2008.

Following this, the Kerala High Court last week directed the revenue divisional officer (RDO) to re-examine the matter within four months, taking into account the agricultural officer’s report and the findings of Kerala State Remote Sensing & Environment Centre (KSREC). The earlier RDO's decision has thus been sent back for fresh review.

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For Mukundan, who is also from Thrissur and has taken on the Lulu Group both legally and politically, the battle is nothing less than a fight for survival as a paddy cultivator.

At the heart of the dispute is a vast stretch of farmland on the outskirts of Thrissur, where the Lulu Group is building a shopping and entertainment complex worth billions of rupees. While proponents have backed the project for promising thousands of new jobs and investments, Mukundan contends that it comes at the expense of ecologically fragile wetlands that the law mandates should be preserved.

'Wetlands are not wastelands'

“Wetlands are not wastelands. Once you fill them up for malls and towers, you can never bring them back. The government itself passed the Wetland Act to protect these ecosystems, yet here we see them turning a blind eye when big money is involved,” he said.

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Mukundan, who has cultivated paddy for over four decades, is not new to grassroots struggles. As a local leader of the CPI, he has been involved in campaigns to preserve agricultural land, promote collective farming, and resist land acquisition that undermines village livelihoods. But the battle with Lulu Group has seen him hogging the limelight in a way that not many local struggles managed to.

In 2021, when preliminary work began on the Thrissur Lulu Mall project, Mukundan filed objections with the local revenue authorities, citing the Kerala Paddy Land and Wetland Conservation Act of 2008. They alleged that the land in question had been classified as paddy fields and wetlands in official records, which should have prevented any form of commercial construction.

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When authorities failed to act, Mukundan escalated the matter to the Kerala High Court. The litigation drew widespread attention, with environmentalists, political activists, and local communities rallying behind him. The court ordered a status quo on certain aspects of the project, forcing the Lulu Group to respond to allegations of violation.

“The previous owner of this land was the Chirakkekkaran group. I first filed a complaint against them when I saw clay mining and refilling happening there. Until 2020, this was a land used for two-season paddy cultivation, and I have ample proof from the agriculture department to show that. When the case came up before the district collector, the Lulu Group argued that they hadn’t altered the land certificate and that the collector had no locus standi to conduct such a hearing or enquiry,” Mukundan said.

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“That is why I approached the court, and now the court has directed the Lulu Group to submit the documents within four months. This is not an isolated case—we all know about the Sobha City project in Puzhakkal and the damage it has caused. Even the government itself is filling paddy land nearby for the KINFRA (Kerala Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation), against which I have also raised concerns and filed a complaint. I am not against development, but development should not come by flouting laws and destroying agricultural land,” he added.

Development versus environment

The row has come to symbolise the broader debate in Kerala over balancing infrastructure growth with environmental safeguards. Thrissur, often called the cultural capital of Kerala, is also a district where rapid urbanisation is swallowing farmland at an alarming pace.

According to government data, Kerala lost over 75 per cent of its wetlands in the last five decades.

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For Mukundan, the loss is not abstract. “When you drain paddy fields, you destroy the natural sponge that protects us from floods. You destroy the habitat for fish and birds. And you also destroy the livelihood of small farmers like me. The 2018 floods should have been a warning — it was the destruction of wetlands that worsened the disaster,” he said.

Lulu Group denies wrongdoing

The Lulu Group, for its part, has denied any illegality, insisting that the land was legally acquired and that all necessary permissions were obtained from the authorities. Company representatives argue that the project will create thousands of jobs and boost Thrissur’s economy.

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“The land Lulu purchased was still a paddy field even after 2008. The KSREC had initially reported truthfully that it was paddy land. But after Lulu bought it, KSREC altered its stand and prepared another false report in Lulu’s favour. Farmer Mukundan highlighted this by producing a table, and the high court has recorded it in its judgment,” Harish Vasudevan, an environment activist and lawyer based in Kochi, said.

“The person inside KSREC who fabricated the fraudulent report would never have imagined, even in dream, that someone like Mukundan would still have a copy of the old report and bring it before the court. Although the KSREC has offered several justifications in this matter, the court did not accept them.

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“The reasoning does not hold, and the judgment makes it clear that falsification of the report indeed took place,” he added.

Mukundan's CPI connection makes things tricky

The political significance of the issue has been heightened by Mukundan’s affiliation with the CPI, which handles agriculture and revenue portfolios in Kerala’s Left Democratic Front (LDF) government, which has often projected itself as a defender of farmers and the environment.

Mukundan’s fight, therefore, places the government in an awkward position, forcing it to navigate between corporate investment and its own policy commitments. But he is the least apologetic.

'Don't care who opposes'

“I found it strange that the court allowed four months for submitting a fresh application, even after observing that it was a violation of the law. Let them do it. We will see what happens. I did not approach the court against the government, but to defend the Wetland Conservation Act, which was brought in by the LDF government. I don’t care who opposes me. I will file a case even if my own party tries to encroach and fill up paddy fields,” he said.

“If the government bends rules for a corporate giant in such a visible case, then what message does it send to ordinary farmers? Mukundan’s stand is courageous precisely because it challenges the complicity of power,” added Vasudevan, who has supported the petition.

For now, the paddy fields of Puzhakkal remain a battleground between concrete and cultivation, between profit and preservation. And at its centre stands Mukundan — a farmer, comrade, and reluctant crusader.