The Tamil Nadu government on Thursday informed the Madras High Court of its in-principle agreement to carry out scientific assessments before fixing the carrying capacity for the ghat roads leading to Udhagamandalam in the Nilgiris district and Kodaikanal in Dindigul district.
Appearing before a special Division Bench of Justices N. Sathish Kumar and D. Bharatha Chakravarthy, Advocate General P.S. Raman said, the decision was taken at a high-level meeting chaired by Chief Secretary Shiv Das Meena and participated by secretaries of various departments.
He said, Environment and Forest Secretary Supriya Sahu, Transport Secretary K. Phanindra Reddy, Revenue Secretary V. Rajaraman and Highways Secretary Pradeep Yadav participated in the meeting to discuss the possibility of fixing carrying capacity for the two hill stations.
The officers took note of guidelines formulated by Govind Ballabh Pant National Institute of Himalayan Environment for assessing the carrying capacity and decided to ask institutes, such as Indian Institute of Technology-Madras and Anna University to conduct the assessments here, the A-G said.
Since the requirements for Udhagamandalam and Kodaikanal would be a little different from that of the Himalayas, the judges asked amicus curiae Chevanan Mohan and Rahul Balaji to frame a draft terms of reference for the assessments to be carried out here and share it with the A-G by next week.
Responding to the court’s query on the possibility of taking some interim measures to control the motor vehicle population on the ghat roads until the completion of the assessment, the A-G said, it had been decided not to disturb the status quo till the polling for the Lok Sabha election on April 19.
However, from April 20 or 21, the Nilgiris Collector would be asked to implement measures, such as enforcing one-way vehicular traffic on the ghat roads without waiting for the commencement of the flower show around May 10, by when a lot of tourists were expected to travel to the hill station, he added.
Accepting his submission, the judges decided to hear the matter next on April 22 by when they expected the court to be apprised of the developments. In the meantime, they asked the A-G to ensure that construction of retaining walls on the ghat road to the Nilgiris gets completed at the earliest.
