Sc Wants Eco-Viability Of Five Projects Verified

The projects are Goshree in Kerala, Sinarmas and Bandra-Kurla projects in Maharashtra and Sanghi Industries in Kutch. The court asked National Environment Engineering Institute director P Khanna to select the teams.

The division bench consisting of Justice Kuldip Singh and Justice S Saghir Ahmad passed the order in a petition, filed by the Indian Council for Enviro-Legal Action, alleging that several projects have been cleared without environmental clearance from the Union government.

Therefore, it wanted an investigation conducted by an independent expert body.

The court clarified that it was not stopping the work on the projects.

They must go on. But keeping in view the sustainable development, their viability from the environmental point of view must be taken into account.

 

The teams will visit the sites and give information and recommendations to the state governments.

Their reports will be also filed in the Supreme Court, which will take up the case again in the first week of December.

The Gosree project in Kerala proposes to reclaim 362 hectares from the sea and develop it into a commercial complex with five star hotels.

Counsel for state government K K Venugopal submitted that it would certainly not harm the environment.

People in the isolated islands there will have access to the mainland through the bridges and the silt blocking the way will be cleared and drinking water will be available.

The court, in its order, stated that the National Environment Engineering Institute could associate the Central Engineering & Water Reserach Centre and other expert bodies to double-check the claims made by the Kerala government.

The Sinarmas project in Pune is for manufacturing paper and pulp with Indonesian aid.

The Bandra-Kurla project is a commercial complex planned to come up within the coastal regulation zone.

The Sanghi Industries plans to set up a huge cement plant. It is stated that large areas in a wild life sanctuary was denotified to enable the company to set up the cement plant.

All these have only conditional clearance from the environment ministry. Therefore, the petitioner sought a second verification on these projects.