The Southern Bench of the National Green Tribunal has set aside the Environmental Clearance (EC) granted to the Tamil Nadu Polymer Industries Park in Tiruvallur district after it found ‘serious lapses’ in the appraisal and assessment of the project by the State Environment Assessment Committee.
The applicant, K. Saravanan, moved the tribunal challenging the EC claiming that the area where the proposed project was set to be established was a tidally-influenced waterbody and classified as a salt pan in revenue records. The applicant further said the project proponent suppressed facts and misrepresented the nature of the land, describing it as dry land though the area was completely filled with water, especially during high tide.
The bench of Justice K. Ramakrishnan and expert member K. Satyagopal directed that further study will have to be conducted, taking the 1996 approved Coastal Zone Management Plan of the Ennore area to find out whether there was any salt pan in between the inter-tidal area or within 100 m of the creek of the backwater.
“If it is a natural salt pan, it will be treated as a wetland, and if it is a man-made one for manufacture of salt, then it cannot be treated as wetland as per the rules,” the bench said, adding that a study was not conducted to ascertain the real nature of the area. Further, the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) report showed that the project area was low lying and needed filling to an extent of 1 to 2 m and was inundated during heavy rains, the bench said.
It said there was a necessity to study the biological diversity of the area both during non-monsoon season as well as the monsoon season to ascertain whether the area was used for breeding purposes also by the marine aquatic fauna or by mainland species.
The bench directed that the further terms of reference for conducting another EIA study regarding the existence of salt pan as per the 1996 CZMP be issued and a study conducted, a study of biological diversity of the area be conducted, the EIA report be prepared by a competent accredited agency having validity as on the date of preparation of the EIA Report till it is being filed and considered.
The EIA study must also identify the flora and fauna available, existence of any migratory birds coming to that area, the bench said.
