NGT panel on Yamuna biased, says Art of Living

NEW DELHI: The Art of Living Foundation said the committee appointed by the National Green Tribunal was biased, unscientific and lacked credibility.

NEW DELHI: The Art of Living Foundation said the committee appointed by the National Green Tribunal was biased, unscientific and lacked credibility.

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The foundation’s swipe came following the panel’s observation that the culture fest destroyed the ecologically fragile Yamuna floodplain. Over 300,000 people attended the foundation’s World Culture Festival held in March.

The panel, appointed to look into the degradation of the Yamuna floodplain after the festival, said the banks were “completely destroyed” and the ground was devoid of water bodies and vegetation.

At a press conference in Bangalore on Wednesday, the foundation said the report was biased and untrue.

“A perfunctory inspection was carried out at the World Culture Festival ground before the event. After this they came up with a random figure of Rs 120 crore to be paid as compensation,” a statement by the foundation said.

“Later, the Art of Living discovered a letter by the chairman of the expert committee Mr Shashi Shekhar written to the NGT admitting that this was an “inadvertent mistake”. This is clear proof of their premeditated stand,” the statement said.

The letter, allegedly written by Shekhar, was not produced.

The committee had submitted its report to the tribunal last week.

“The committee observes that entire floodplain area used for the main event site i.e. between DND flyover and the Barapulla drain (on the right bank of river Yamuna) has been completely destroyed, not simply damaged,” the committee’s report said.

“The ground is now totally levelled, compacted and hardened and is totally devoid of water bodies or depressions and almost completely devoid of any vegetation,” the report said.

“The area where the grand stage was erected (and the area immediately behind it) is heavily consolidated - most likely with a different kind of external material used to level the ground and compress it. Huge amount of earth and debris have been dumped to construct the ramps for access from the DND flyover and from the two pontoon bridges across the Barapulla drain,” it said.

The Art of Living Foundation has alleged that the committee is compromised as some members have ‘close connections’ with the petitioner.

“One of the expert committee members has been canvassing the petitioner’s case before the media. This clearly shows his bias. Another has close connections with the petitioner. He has since done joint investigations of another project with the petitioner, undertaken projects with him and travelled with him. These facts were not disclosed to us earlier. The kind of evidence submitted by this committee amounts to nothing less than a scientific fraud,” the Art of Living statement said.

Earlier, the NGT had levied a Rs 5 crore-environmental compensation on the foundation, which the latter paid.