The National Green Tribunal (NGT), Southern Zone, has directed the Andhra Pradesh Maritime Board and the GMR Energy Limited (8 th respondent) to pay the environmental compensation to be assessed by a committee appointed by it and the cost of restoration of the damaged mangroves at Kumbabhishekam on the Kakinada coast, its replantation and maintenance for five years.
The NGT constituted a committee in 2020 to study the destruction of mudflat and mangrove cover in the Kumbabhishekam area in response to the petition filed by retired bureaucrat E.A.S. Sarma and Kakinada-based environmental activist K. Mrutyunjaya Rao.
The GMR Energy Limited has disturbed the mudflat and erected a bund at Kumbabhishekam, where it deposited dredged material amid the mangrove for transporting a barge-mounted power plant through sea route.
