Gujarat govt "not implementing" National Green Tribunal orders on clean environment, alleges eco-group

Paryavaran Mitra, Gujarat’s environmental groups, has taken strong exception to the refusal of the Gujarat government to comply by orders of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in cases fought with its active support. Prepared by Gujarat Social Watch, operating under the auspices of Paryavaran Mitra, its latest study, “Assessment of working of National Green Tribunal (NGT): With special reference to cases from Gujarat and western region bench of Pune”, has cited two such cases where the state officialdom has shown particular inertia.
One of the cases study refers to relates to Rajkot-based solid waste management plant, which has been closed following an order by the NGT to manage solid waste in a way that it does not harm environment. The study regrets, “Currently, the plant is closed down and the process of the waste management has stopped and dumping of the waste is done in open grounds”. It adds, “No action of management has been taken since December 2013.”
Taking strong exception to the Gujarat Pollution Control Board for showing utter indifference towards this, the study says, “The GPCB is sleeping over its duties, and the state government has refused to take any action “against the authorities” responsible for this. It recalls, “The NTG had strictly directed GPCB to see to it that the pollution parameters are not tampered by the authorities.”
Saying that instead of seeking that pollution parameters are met, the study says, instead, “The plant has been closed down, which is leading to more pollution. Instances of fire were also noticed by the locals causing threat to the public.” The contractors responsible for solid waste management, who were castigated by the Hanjer Biotech Energies Pvt Ltd (HBEPL), for failing to properly manage the solid waste plant, the study says, HBEPL “has disappeared and is no more engaged with the Rajkot Municipal Corporation (RMC).
In fact, the study suspects that HBEPL and RMC have “mutually disposed of the contractual liability although the contract was for 30 years”. Instead of making HBEPL responsible, “The municipal corporation has invited new tender for the waste management”. The study quotes Shailendra Sinh Jadeja, who fought the NGT case for Paryavaran Mitra, as saying that even compensation ordered by the NGT, Rs 25 lakh, for polluting irrigation waters, has not been paid.
Jadeja is now considering to approach the Supreme Court against the judgment, saying, “An investigating agency or some higher authority to conduct probe RMC officials, because the latter did not work within the parameters of set for pollution control. There should be increase in the amount of compensation. Then, this is a clear case of contempt. The plant has been closed down, while the court direction said the plant should be properly managed. In fact, the main contention of the authorities was that closure of the plant would lead to the problem of large-scale environmental pollution, adversely affecting public health.”
In a second case, quoted in the study, of the manner in which the Environmental Clearance (EC) was granted by the Union ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) to the Pipavav Port’s expansion project, which was seeking to destroy the ecology of the region, the study says, “The project has still continues to violate EC conditions. resulting in increased air and water pollution.”
It says, “The road used by villagers to move out from village, which was blocked by the project is now partially opened only for certain time period (time fixed by the project). Also the cargos or containers which are loaded and unloaded are kept on open grounds. There is no special area for it and also they don’t have any area to place their cargos or the containers which are imported-exported”, the study underlines.
“These are kept on open grounds resulting in water pollution killing cows amd buffaloes. They have changed the flow of water due to which farm lands has became saline resulting in infertile lands in Rampara village. During construction activity for expansion, they buried the mangroves and dig it into land and claimed that there were no mangroves present. The fishermen depend directly on biological diversity of sea for their livelihoods, which was prominently near the mangroves”, the study says.
“As there was deforestation of the mangroves, the fishermen had to go further in the sea for fishing. Thus fishermen are affected economically especially in the Shiyalbet village. Moreover, they claim on papers that they have adopted villages and allocate funds for welfare of the villagers, but reality is they have not even provided basic facilities to the adopted villages”, the study contends.

Comments

Ahmedabad's civic chaos: Drainage woes, waterlogging, and the illusion of Olympic dreams

In response to my blog on overflowing gutter lines at several spots in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur, a heavily populated area, a close acquaintance informed me that it's not just the middle-class housing societies that are affected by the nuisance. Preeti Das, who lives in a posh locality in what is fashionably called the SoBo area, tells me, "Things are worse in our society, Applewood."

RP Gupta a scapegoat to help Govt of India manage fallout of Adani case in US court?

RP Gupta, a retired 1987-batch IAS officer from the Gujarat cadre, has found himself at the center of a growing controversy. During my tenure as the Times of India correspondent in Gandhinagar (1997–2012), I often interacted with him. He struck me as a straightforward officer, though I never quite understood why he was never appointed to what are supposed to be top-tier departments like industries, energy and petrochemicals, finance, or revenue.

PharmEasy: The only online medical store which revises prices upwards after confirming the order

For senior citizens — especially those without a family support system — ordering medicines online can be a great relief. Shruti and I have been doing this for the last couple of years, and with considerable success. We upload a prescription, receive a verification call from a doctor, and within two or three days, the medicines are delivered to our doorstep.

Powering pollution, heating homes: Why are Delhi residents opposing incineration-based waste management

While going through the 50-odd-page report Burning Waste, Warming Cities? Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Incineration and Urban Heat in Delhi , authored by Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran of the well-known advocacy group Centre for Financial Accountability, I came across a reference to Sukhdev Vihar — a place where I lived for almost a decade before moving to Moscow in 1986 as the foreign correspondent of the daily Patriot and weekly Link .

Environmental report raises alarm: Sabarmati one of four rivers with nonylphenol contamination

A new report by Toxics Link , an Indian environmental research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi, in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund , a global non-profit headquartered in New York, has raised the alarm that Sabarmati is one of five rivers across India found to contain unacceptable levels of nonylphenol (NP), a chemical linked to "exposure to carcinogenic outcomes, including prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women."

Dalit rights and political tensions: Why is Mevani at odds with Congress leadership?

While I have known Jignesh Mevani, one of the dozen-odd Congress MLAs from Gujarat, ever since my Gandhinagar days—when he was a young activist aligned with well-known human rights lawyer Mukul Sinha’s organisation, Jan Sangharsh Manch—he became famous following the July 2016 Una Dalit atrocity, in which seven members of a family were brutally assaulted by self-proclaimed cow vigilantes while skinning a dead cow, a traditional occupation among Dalits.

Tracking a lost link: Soviet-era legacy of Gujarati translator Atul Sawani

The other day, I received a message from a well-known activist, Raju Dipti, who runs an NGO called Jeevan Teerth in Koba village, near Gujarat’s capital, Gandhinagar. He was seeking the contact information of Atul Sawani, a translator of Russian books—mainly political and economic—into Gujarati for Progress Publishers during the Soviet era. He wanted to collect and hand over scanned soft copies, or if possible, hard copies, of Soviet books translated into Gujarati to Arvind Gupta, who currently lives in Pune and is undertaking the herculean task of collecting and making public soft copies of Soviet books that are no longer available in the market, both in English and Indian languages.

Boeing 787 under scrutiny again after Ahmedabad crash: Whistleblower warnings resurface

A heart-wrenching tragedy has taken place in Ahmedabad. As widely reported, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane crashed shortly after taking off from the city’s airport, currently operated by India’s top tycoon, Gautam Adani. The aircraft was carrying 230 passengers and 12 crew members. As expected, the crash has led to an outpouring of grief across the country. At the same time, there have been demands for the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and Civil Aviation Minister Venkaiah Naidu. The most striking comment came from BJP MP Subramanian Swamy, who stated : "When a train derailed in the 1950s, Lal Bahadur Shastri resigned. On the same morality, I demand PM Modi, HM Amit Shah, and Civil Aviation Minister Naidu resign so that a free and fair inquiry can be held. All that Modi and his associates have been doing so far is gallivanting, which must stop." Amidst widespread mourning, some fringe elements sought to communalize the tragedy. One post ...

Revisiting Gijubhai: Pioneer of child-centric education and the caste debate

It was Krishna Kumar, the well-known educationist, who I believe first introduced me to the name — Gijubhai Badheka (1885–1939). Hailing from Bhavnagar, known as the cultural capital of the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, Gijubhai, Kumar told me during my student days, made significant contributions to the field of pedagogy — something that hasn't received much attention from India's education mandarins. At that time, Kumar was my tutorial teacher at Kirorimal College, Delhi University.

Search This Blog