In what could be a major hurdle for the ceremony to lay foundation stone for the Andhra Pradesh Capital for which Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to attend, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has reportedly asked the State Government not to proceed with works in the area until the project gets “environmental clearance”.
But the State government, on its part, said the concerns raised by NGT will not be an impediment to the event. Briefing media in Vijayawada on Saturday, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu said it was not an interim order (from NGT) that was perceived as an impediment to Capital city foundation event and due procedures were being complied with to take the project forward.
“It is a notice from the NGT. We are in touch with the MoEF and will do whatever is required,” Mr. Naidu said. However, the Counsel for the petitioner Pandalaneni Srimannarayana in the NGT, K Sravan Kumar, said that the Tribunal gave “clear instructions to the State government to stop clearing of the capital area until the new project for construction of a capital was granted environmental clearance.”
The petitioner, at a hearing of the Tribunal on Saturday, in New Delhi, submitted photographs and videos of various gardens being cleared by bulldozers. The Tribunal in the past gave additional time for the CRDA to file a detailed counter only on the condition that “no activity would be taken up in the area until the next hearing of the Tribunal which fell on October 10.
“More time was granted to file a detailed counter only after their counsel gave a declaration that no activity would be taken before the next hearing. They violated their own declaration,” Mr Srimannarayana told The Hindu . His counsel Mr. Sravan Kumar said that, ironically the Department of Environment which was meant to protect environment itself had not filed its counter to the petition filed by his client.
