Lavasa may challenge MoEF order in court

Undeterred by the show cause notice served by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) to Lavasa Corporation, the Hindustan Construction Company (HCC) today said it would explore legal action.

HCC, whose arm, Lavasa Corporation, was engaged in the development of Lavasa City near Pune, was surprised by the MoEF move as it had clarified its stand in October by providing necessary papers to the state environment department. HCC would soon reply to the show cause notice.

Lavasa Corporation said: “We express shock at receiving the stop work notice from MoEF. In an earlier communication to the Government of Maharashtra, issues raised by MoEF had already been responded to.”

Lavasa had clarified that the development carried out at the Lavasa City were within the framework of the clearance granted by the state environment ministry. All activities were permissible as per the environment clearance and the consent to establish and operate granted by the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board on May 30, 2002 and January 5, 2005, it said.

Lavasa had clarified its stand to the state environment ministry on October 29, 2010. It said there was no development on areas above 1,000 metres. The only exception was the entry gate which had a symbolic structure on the main access road to Lavasa. The first development was about 2 km from the gate and was at an altitude of 925 metres. The highest point where development was being carried out was 975 metres from the mean sea level. However, the bulk of the development represented by the town centres was around the lake edge which was at 640 metres.

Lavasa’s argument is crucial, especially when MoEF in its show cause notice stated that the luxury township had got clearance in 2004 to construct only over 2,000 hectares and that, too, on land ranging less than 1,000 metres above sea level. However, investigations by the Pune collector showed that 47.30 hectares on which the promoters had undertaken construction was above 1,000 metres.

Lavasa said: “If the provisions of entry 18 are interpreted the way the NGOs wish to, every tourism project irrespective of its altitude will attract the provisions of entry 18 if the investment is more than Rs 5 crore. This will completely defeat the intention of offering incentives to tourism projects through special exemptions. Thus, provisions of the Environment Impact Assessment notification, 1994, are not applicable to the project.”