Lavasa Corp to approach MoEF over deadlock

Notwithstanding its petition pending before the Bombay High Court, Lavasa Corporation, the arm of Hindustan Construction Company (HCC) engaged in developing the hill city in Maharashtra, would soon initiate dialogues with the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) to find an early solution.

The company however, ruled out the withdrawal of its petition or any out-of-court settlement. The construction at the Lavasa project site has come to a halt after the MoEF served an order on November 25, 2010, and the company is incurring a daily loss of Rs 2 crore since then.

Ajit Gulabchand, HCC Chairman and Managing Director, told reporters that the company does not agree with the findings of both the technical committee and another chaired by the MoEF advisor on the project. “The reports are more on jurisdiction, and not on environment issue. Minor violations at the project site have been amplified,” he said, adding that the company would start talks with the MoEF with the sole objective of reaching an early solution. “Our objective is to set new standards of environment protection and future hill station development projects,” he added.

Gulabchand also explained that the MoEF order was based more on state vs Centre jurisdiction, rather than on environmental issues. The state government had given its environment clearance in 2004.

“However, no weight or concession has been given to the huge body of data submitted by Lavasa Corporation on environment protection and enhancement initiatives, which included various lab test reports from MoEF-approved labs and the visual evidence shown to the MoEF technical committee during their site visit,” he noted.

Gulabchand admitted that the company, in a way, has become a victim of the jurisdiction issue and hoped that such blocks would be removed to allow infrastructure projects to grow in India.