All states and UTs to accord top priority to wetland demarcation: MoEFCC affidavit
This follows an earlier office memorandum, issued by the ministry on December 24, to chief secretaries/administrators of all states to furnish time-bound action plans by Dec 31, MoEFCC said
The National Wetlands Committee has decided to direct all states and Union territories to accord “top priority” to comply with the Supreme Court order on completing ground truthing and demarcation of wetlands, the Union environment ministry informed the Supreme Court on Monday.
This follows an earlier office memorandum, issued by the ministry on December 24, to chief secretaries/administrators of all states to furnish the time-bound action plans by December 31, the MoEFCC said in an affidavit filed in the court Monday, ahead of a hearing in a key case on the status of wetlands in the top court on Tuesday.
The affidavit, seen by HT, said that in compliance with an order of the top court in the Anand Arya Vs Union of India case, the ministry has sought progress report from states on a fortnightly basis.
The court on December 11 said that “each of the State/UT Wetland Authorities shall complete ground truthing as well as the demarcation of wetland boundaries of each of the Wetland which have been identified for their State by Space Application Centre Atlas (SAС Atlas), 2021 as expeditiously as possible, but definitely within a period of three months from 11.12.2024.”
The decision on seeking the compliance reports was taken during a meeting of the NWC on December 27, the affidavit said, further listing out the other decision taken at the meeting.
“All the States/UTs should accord ‘top priority’ to the task and ensure meticulous and time bound compliance of the directions of the Hon’ble Court”, and “all the participants should sensitize their respective Administrative Secretaries/HoDs of the directions and ensure regular follow up and progress in the matter”, the affidavit said.
HT reported on Monday that environment ministry data has revealed that of the country’s estimated over 200,000 wetlands, only 102 have been notified and even these are concentrated in three states and one Union territory.
While Rajasthan has notified 75 wetlands and Goa 25, both Uttar Pradesh and Chandigarh have notified one each, the ministry’s data, shared in response to an RTI and available on ministry’s Wetlands of India Portal, showed.
The ministry’s affidavit on Monday further stated that MoEFCC will share a document with the states that they can use for updating the status on a day-to-day basis.
MoEFCC, with support from Space Application Centre, National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM) and knowledge partners, will accord all possible help to the states in the matter, the affidavit said, adding that a coordination exercise will be held everyday.
“...reminders have been issued to the Member Secretaries of SWAs/UTWAs and Chief Secretaries/Administrators of States/UTs to accelerate the ground-truthing and boundary demarcation process for wetlands within their jurisdictions. The States and Union Territories were requested to update their present status on the ground-truthing and demarcation of wetland boundaries in the designated Google sheet and upload the data in the Save Wetlands Campaign Portal,” the affidavit said.
According to the latest information available on the portal, of the 231,195 wetlands inventoried in SAC Atlas 2021, ground truthing of 158,475 wetlands and boundary demarcation of 74,644 wetlands has been completed as on March 22.
Chandigarh has completed the ground-truthing process, with Madhya Pradesh at 97%, Chhattisgarh, Punjab and Tripura at 96%. In terms of boundary demarcation, Chandigarh has marked the boundaries of all wetlands, followed by Tripura (96%), Maharashtra (90%), Chhattisgarh (88%) and Bihar (86%).