Ban mining and thermal plants in 37% of western ghats: govt panel

A high level environment ministry committee has asked the government to declare 37 % of 160,000 sq kms of Western Ghats area as ecological sensitive area where no mining or thermal plants should be allowed, Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Apr 18, 2013, 01:20:40 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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A high level environment ministry committee has asked the government to declare 37 % of 160,000 sq kms of Western Ghats area as ecological sensitive area where no mining or thermal plants should be allowed.

Other industrial activities should be allowed, the panel said, with restrictions in the 1,600 km long Western Ghats across Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

The panel headed by Planning Commission member K Kasturirangan submitted its report to environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan on Wednesday calling for development in a sustained manner in one of the world’s finest ecological hotspots as reported by HT on Tuesday.

“It is imperative that we protect, manage and regenerate the lands now remaining in the Western Ghats as biologically rich, diverse, natural landscapes. We have reached a threshold from which we cannot slip further,” Kasturirangan said.

The committee constituted to study recommendations of another environment ministry committee headed by former National Advisory Council member Madhav Gadgil paved way for commercial activities.

The Gagdil committee had virtually suggested ban on no new major industrial units in the Western Ghats which has irked the environment ministry, the state governments and the industry lobby.

The Kasturirangan panel used remote sensing technology to differentiate between natural and cultural heritage. The cultural landscape – which includes human settlements, agricultural fields and plantations -- covers 58.44% of the region. The natural landscape ranges over the remaining 41.56%, the report said.

Apart from 37 % ecologically sensitive area, the committee recommended a prohibitory development regime for some 60,000 sq km, spread over the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

The prohibitory regime includes allowing hydropower projects ensuring ecological flow of atleast 30 of the rivers in lean season and after a cumulative study to assess impact of each project on the flow pattern of the rivers and forest and biodiversity loss.

It also said that the minimum distance between projects is maintained at 3 km and that not more than 50 per cent of the river basin is affected at any time.

“Wing energy projects should be included in the environment impact assessment notification of 2006 and brought under purview of assessment and clearance,” the committee said, adding that the government should promote industries with “low environmental impacts”.

The committee has allowed building and construction projects up 20,000 sq meters but asked the government to prohibit new townships. Townships and area development projects should be prohibited.

To make project clearance process participatory, the committee wants all projects to require prior-informed consent and no-objection from gram sabha of villages inside ecologically sensitive areas.

“The provision for prior informed consent under the Forest Rights Act will also be strictly enforced, the committee said.

The group also wants that the money earned through commercial activity should be used within the Western Ghats region and for that it suggested the Planning Commission to set up a special Western Ghats Sustainable Development Fund.

“This fund will be used to promote programmes specifically designed to implement an effective ESA regime and incentivize green growth in the region,” the report said.

It also wants the environment ministry to set up Decision Support and Monitoring Centre for Western Ghats having joint management of all six states of Western Ghats region.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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