Hyderabad: The National Green Tribunal (NGT), while paving the way for the construction of the new capital of AP in Amaravati, constituted supervisory and implementation committees to ensure that its directions are adhered to. A three-member bench of the NGT headed by chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar said that the two committees were being constituted to have the requisite regulatory and supervisory control over the performance of the project proponent, in the interest of the environment and ecology.
The supervisory committee will be headed by the additional secretary of the Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change and the additional chief secretary of the AP environment and forest ministry. It will comprise senior scientists nominated from the National Institute of Hydrology at Roorkee in Uttarakhand and Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, member-secretary of the AP Pollution Control Board and Prof. N.J. Pawar of the department of geology, Savitribai Phule University.
The committee must meet at least once every three months to finalise policy directions and the manner in which the order granting environmental clearance and the conditions imposed in its judgement are to be implemented by the project proponent.The implementation committee will be headed by the additional chief secretary of the AP ministry of environment and forests. Members of the Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change, member-secretary of the AP Pollution Control Board, senior scientists from the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, and Dr Venkateswarlu Kadiyala, a former professor of the Sri Krishnadevaraya University, Anantapur, have been nominated to the committee.
The committee shall meet every month and ensure that the directions contained in the NGT’s judgement, and as decided by the supervisory committee, and any other conditions imposed in the future, are actually implemented by the project proponent. The implementation committee shall also prepare a compliance and implementation report.
The bench made it clear that the members nominated or appointed to the committees should not have been involved in the preparation of the detailed project report, the environmental impact assessment process, or the granting of environmental clearance. The bench directed the implementation committee to conduct a comprehensive inspection of the entire project.
