The Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), in a fresh counter-affidavit before the National Green Tribunal (NGT), on Wednesday, said the Vizhinjam International Deepwater Multipurpose Seaport in Kerala was cleared after following all due procedures required under the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) notification and the Coastal Zone Regulation (CRZ), 2011.
The port project will be implemented by Vizhinjam International Seaport Ltd. (VISL). It appealed to the NGT to dismiss the application challenging the environmental and CRZ clearance granted to the project. The MoEF affidavit said this petition challenging both clearances should be dismissed as it was not supported by a valid affidavit of the applicant. The applicants said they were barely literate in English and ignorant of the Internet and could not read the Environmental Clearance (EC) from the Internet.
In the original application, the signatures appended on the affidavit are in Malayalam, meaning that the applicants are not literate in English. Despite this, the supporting affidavit nowhere states that the contents of the original application have been read over to them in “vernacular (Malayalam)”. The affidavit justified clearance for the project and said the project proposal was considered in the 95th Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) meeting held from January 18 to 20, 2011. In response to comments from the EAC, VlSL submitted reports, including technical feasibility and project plans.
EIA report publishedThe EAC, after deliberation, agreed on the Vizhinjam site. The draft EIA report was published and a public hearing was conducted on June 29, 2013, at the project site. There were objections raised, including lack of data on endangered species, the site’s location in CRZ 1 area, difficulties for fishermen in crossing the channel, impact of dredging, and other aspects.
The project was recommended for clearance by the Kerala State Coastal Zone Management Authority on August 24, 2013. Though under the Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP) of Kerala, areas of outstanding natural beauty were classified as CRZ 1, they may not be considered so since they were not under the purview of the CRZ 2011 notification, the MoEF said.
The affidavit said that CZMPs are prepared by every State under the CRZ notification and that in case of any conflict between the two, it is the CRZ notification 2011 which will be considered and relied upon over the State CZMP. The MoEF granted Environmental Clearance and CRZ clearance on January 3, 2014, stipulating various environmental safeguards.
