NGT asks panel to examine green damage for kanwar rd

NGT asks panel to examine green damage for kanwar rd

Ghaziabad: The National Green Tribunal last week ordered formation of a joint committee to assess the extent of environmental damage that has been caused and can be caused because of construction of a 111km kanwar corridor along the Upper Ganga canal in western UP.
The four-member joint panel will comprise the director of Forest Survey of India, a senior scientist of joint secretary rank and above, UP chief secretary and Meerut district magistrate, NGT said in its Aug 9 order.

In Feb this year, the tribunal took suo-motu cognisance of Union environment ministry’s approval to chop 1.1 lakh trees to make way for a two-lane road from Muradnagar in Ghaziabad to Purkazi in Muzaffarnagar, close to the Uttarakhand border. Meant to decongest Delhi-NCR, this corridor is supposed to be an alternative route for kanwariyas when they participate in their annual yatra till Haridwar.
“It will be open to the committee to interact with local people to ascertain the correct position. Let this exercise be completed within a period of four weeks and a report be submitted before the tribunal. The chief secretary, state of UP, in the meanwhile, will ensure that no illegal felling of trees takes place,” said the bench of NGT chairperson Prakash Shrivastava, judicial member Arun Kumar Tyagi and expert member Dr A Senthil Vel.

The bench will take up the case next on Sept 20.
The tribunal also directed the surveyor general of the Survey of India to be virtually present in the next hearing.

This direction was made because NGT, in the last hearing in July, had sought satellite imagery of land where trees were cut to build the kanwar corridor. But no report has been filed till now.

Since taking up the case, several intervenors – including former Ghaziabad councillor Rajendra Tyagi, and environmentalists Satendra Singh and Vikrant Tongad -- have joined in to argue against permission given for felling trees.

They alleged in the July hearing that a 5-metre-wide kutcha road existed next to the canal, but authorities were building the kanwar corridor by taking up another 15 to 20 metre area next to it by illegally cutting down trees. They said trees had been chopped up to a width of 40 metres, though permission was given for 15-20-metres. Opposing the allegations, additional solicitor general KM Nataraj and additional advocate general Garima Prashad, representing the UP govt, said the initial plan was to build a 20-metre-wide road, but the width was reduced to 15 metres in some areas to reduce the number of trees that were to be chopped.

Environmentalists have also argued before NGT that the corridor will destroy the ecosystem along the canal. They questioned the necessity of an additional route for kanwar yatra, considering there are three key passages used for it and the environmental cost of such a project.