Lavasa is an unbiased India's first prepared hill city. The under-construction town is merely an hour's drive from Pune in the Mose Valley and the backwaters of the quiet Warasgaon dam area. This as-yet incomplete city has been controversial for many reasons including: procurement of land, injury to the surroundings (water utilization), and lending options acquired through political corruption. Till November 25 '2010, the construction just work at Lavasa was completely swing action when the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) released a stop-work order and notice to Lavasa Organization Limited (LCL). The reason why given was that the company had didn't obtain environmental clearance from the Union ministry and possessed proceeded based on a clearance from Maharashtra's environment division. The ministry's Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC), constituted in response to the public interest petition transferred by the Country wide Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM), formed by activists and NGOs, in the high court of Mumbai for new infrastructure tasks and Coastal Rules Area, said that planning and development of the whole job should be reworked as it violated environment laws and regulations, including haphazard cutting of hillsides. Lavasa challenged the ministry's order in the high court docket, saying it experienced taken the essential clearances from the state of hawaii and the ministry got no jurisdiction over the project. LCL later applied for post facto clearance from MoEF for the first stage of the job, on Feb 1; Lavasa has been developed in two stages of 2, 000 ha and 3, 000 ha.
Lavasa: About the project
Lavasa Corporation Small (LCL) is creating a hill stop township task located 65 kilometres from Pune in the Mose Valley and the backwaters of the calm Warasgaon dam area, place amidst 7 hills and 60 kms of lakefront. It really is touted as indie India's first prepared hill city and it is one of the major Infrastructure Projects in the united states. A total of 10, 000 hectares (= 25, 000 acres) land will be used for the task which includes typically the farm land and private forests or forest like land.
The development plan is distributed over 20 years and would complete by 2025. It requires strong planning in stages.
Phase I: Dasve, Mugaon, Bhoni - To determine Lavasa Brand. Development will be usually merged use with give attention to front-loaded financial drivers
Phase II: Focus on meeting residential demand motivated through development of economical activities and scaling up of travel and leisure, hospitality, and leisure activities
Phase III: Sakhari, Wadaval - In addition to personal development, concentrate on developing a commercial business district
Phase IV: Bhode, Mose, Saiv - Development of the second commercial business district.
Statutory Specialists and their responsibilities
There are majorly five companies that are in charge of framing regulatory platform for environment and pollution control. These firms have different functions to play so far as framing of guidelines and their application is concerned. This can be easily differentiated in a tabular form:
Ministry of Environment & Forests (MOEF), Govt. of India
Formulate Strategies & Policies
Formulate rules & acts and seek acceptance from Parliament
Interact with Internation agencies
Issue Environmental Clearance & Permits
Implement Nationa Schemes
Monitor the process through Regional Offices
Central Air pollution Control Plank (CPCB), Govt. of India
Prepare Technical guidelines
Provide technical backup to MOEF
Provide laboratory center, keep an eye on & R&D
Legal Proceedings
Implement registration and other schemes
Monitor through Zonal Offices
Department of Environment (DOEN), Status Govt.
Formulate procedures & strategies
formulate rules, operates & seeks acceptance from Legislative Assembly & Council
Co-ordinate with MOEF & CPCB
Issue Environmental clearance & permits
State Air pollution Control Plank (SPCB), Point out Govt.
Consent management of Industries
Legal proceedings
Projects & Planning
Monitring aspects
Dayal Committee: A 10-member committee, constituted by the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) to assess the environment impact of Lavasa project.
Environmental concerns violated in Lavasa job - An analysis
The Lavasa has always been a contentious issue and a controversial job. For years, it has been blamed for the serious environmental damage including nature and has been criticized by the Ministry of Environment and Forests for quarrying and hill cutting. However, Post looking at the project, this ministry provided clearance on 9 November 2011 to Lavasa with specific conditions, such as a cessation of hill lowering activities, building of a sewage treatment herb, and anti-poverty CSR actions aimed at the neighborhood population.
For a twelve months period from past due 2010 to overdue 2011, development of Lavasa had to be halted anticipated to orders from the Ministry of Environment and Forests. In past due 2010 it ordered Lavasa Corporation to prevent further structure for devoid of compiled proper clearances.
Ministry of Environment and Forests found Lavasa to be violating the rules and rules under the Environment protection act 1986. Corresponding to MOEF, LCL (Lavasa Organization Ltd) is at violation of
The EIA Notification, 1994;
The EIA Notification, as amended in 2004; and
The EIA Notification of 2006.
The site visit article has also helped bring out the nature and magnitude of environmentally friendly damage triggered by the project. As a result, the development activity is unauthorized, being in violation of the above three notifications and is also also environmentally damaging.
Concept: EIA is an instrument to assess positive and negative impacts of a project on bordering area, people, vegetation, flora, fauna, property and overall environment.
Components
Air Air pollution (From Process and Gas burning)
Water Pollution (Industrial process, Effluents and sewage, Treatment and reuse)
Land Pollution (Chemical pollution, Waste material substances, solid waste, treatment & removal)
Noise Pollution
Ecology, Flora, Fauna, Fisheries, endangered species
Natural Resources (Air, Normal water, Land, Rivers, Streams, Ponds & Lakes, Hillsides, Forest, )
Ecosensitive area, Sanctuaries, Migration routes.
Archeological sites, Roads, Military Establishments, Academic institutions, Hospitals, Other sociable centers
SocioEconomy, Rehabilitation, Resettlement, Compensations
Disaster Management, Risk Assessment
Major Socio-Environmental Concerns
Ecology
Lavasa is in the province of WESTERN GHATS of INDIA which is among World's 20 most ecologically hypersensitive HOT Areas. Also, the UNESCO is considering declaring American Ghats region as the globe Heritage Site regarding to media accounts.
Western Ghat is a crucial factor for Monsoon of India and other meteorologically important parameters
The committee has documented that Lavasa has induced massive devastation of the ecology of the region, especially leading to grave injuries to hills, flora-fauna, water body, etc
Land
Land participate in Adivasi (Tribal) Land which can't be sold or bought minus the permission of the District administration to a Non Tribal entity, in reality Mulshi and Velhe talukas, where Lavasa is situated, is not selected as a tribal region. In 1976, the Govt. of Maharashtra implemented land reforms in the area. A case registered at authorities by one tribe Bandya Bhau Valhekar is pending at Mulshi
The project is propagate over 18 villages consisting of various Gaothans (villages). There are a few adivasi areas in the affected area and that there has been a huge scale diversion of "ceiling surplus" land which was allotted to these Adivasis and Nomadic Tribes.
Also Ceiling land is one of the landless poor people as per Ceiling Function. (THE URBAN LAND (CEILING AND REGULATION), Function, 1976, No. 33 OF 1976)
Land has been either by cheating or using muscule vitality, An unhealthy farmer Dnyaneshwar Shedge has filed a problem against Lavasa in a single such matter
The 80 strange Katkari families of tribal stock in this area participate in Raigadh Area; 47 of these are moving into Mugaon village. They used to come for seasonal agricultural labor to aid local farmers with rice cultivation before the paddy fields were lost to the Warasgaon dam. However when the lands were submerged, the displaced farmers commenced to cut trees to make charcoal.
Many of those that Lavasa purchased land from are not "local farmers" but people who have been surviving in Pune, Mumbai, Dubai or even London. An excellent chunk of land was originally bought by a genuine estate firm called Expat Limited before Lavasa Firm had become. Even today a few of the investors of Expat have not sold their lands to Lavasa.
Due to isolation, people were required to walk 5-6 hr over hilly ground to reach the nearest city to be able to sell forest products like bamboo and charcoal. Subsequently, this region became very sparsely filled with a complete people of 3117 according to the 2001 census.
Water resources
Effects on downstream users- Pune and additional users, Air pollution.
The back normal water of the dams were filled with stone crushing material and also that the villagers expressed that the job has adversely impacted their life and they are not eager to spend the their land for any of the project activities.
The Varasgaon Dam is an important dam for normal water source to Pune city. THIS PARTICULAR Recourses Section of Federal government has sanctioned a quota of 1 1. 03 TMC drinking water to Lavasa, that was said to be the four weeks utility of normal water by Pune city. For this reason reservoir very practically dries up in the hot summertime leading up to the monsoon. There are statements that drinking water from Varasgaon is diverted to Lavasa and can result in problems in water source to Pune city.
Township
Objection to the slicing of hills for making highways, on the other hand it says that the highways were not extensive enough for the expected traffic
A "top notch" huge convention centre will not go with the concept of a hill stop with only 9 meters access road, without sufficient parking procedures. '
Quite a few domestic buildings are without satisfactory open spaces, set back distances, parking spaces etc
Height of properties was increased from G+2 to G+5, which was illegal in the original hill station insurance plan.
Social Unrest
Land being obtained by hook or crook.
Inadequate reimbursement.
State machinery used to coerce farmers.
No proper strategies to rehabilitate the farmers infected.
Lavasa has been granted permissions in quick time by bending / breaking the law.
Land leased for 30 yrs by govt. which in fact won't be returned and is as good as sold.
Environment and Environmental Laws
It was obligatory for Lavasa to seek PRIOR Environmental Clearance from the appropriate specialists under EIA Notifications 1994, 2004 and 2006. However do not require was obtained from the appropriate government bodies.
NAPM described this to Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF) Govt of India which in turn issued a STOP WORK notice to Lavasa on 25th November 2010.
Lavasa shifted to High Court against MOEF order, however; the High Courtroom rejected Lavasa's get to allow continuation of construction work. The works at task site came to prevent.
MoEF constituted Dayal Committee and additional Ravindran Committee which advised that Lavasa should be asked to pay 5% of the project cost as the surroundings Protection Fund instead of the environmental damages caused by it.
Dayal Committee Survey and its outcome
The Dayal committee visited the website from 5th-7th January, 2011 and inspected every Development, every site of the task, assessed the environmental state and consequently submitted the report to the MoEF which included a list of damages that the LCL has induced to the surroundings conditions. Nevertheless the chairman of the committee is being criticized for directing out very Small issue and problems to the environment.
After three days of on-the-spot examination, the 11-member team of Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) announced that the Lavasa job had induced no damage of forests.
The statement given by the chairman Mr. Dayal of the committee was "Prima facie, forest damage does not seem to be to have happened in case there is Lavasa. "
The committee also reported that no decrease in water resource to Pune city was found to possess occurred as a result of the task. The Dayal committee obviously gave a clean-chit to Lavasa mainly on two issues:
Impact on forests and environment
Impact on the water source to Pune city
Differing Issues:
MOEF
Lavasa Company Limited
LCL (Lavasa Company Ltd) is violation of (i) the EIA Notification, 1994; (ii) the EIA Notification, as amended in 2004;
and (iii) the EIA Notification of 2006.
The site visit record has also brought out the nature and magnitude of the environmental damage brought on by the project. Therefore, the building activity is unauthorised, being in violation of the above three notifications which is also environmentally detrimental.
The MoEF order is more on jurisdiction than on environment issues.
However, having respect to the aforementioned but taking into account all the facts and circumstances of the case, particularly the
submissions made out of regard to the opportunities already incurred, third-party rights which are accrued, the various steps taken for establishment of a thorough hill station
development, the occupation made and the stated upliftment of the region under consideration, MoEF (Ministry of Environement and Forests) is ready to consider the project on merits with the imposition of varied terms and conditions,
including the following:
The payment of substantial penalty for the violation of environmental regulations, which is incontrovertible;
Over and above the penalty, creation of your Environmental Restoration Finance (ERF) by LCL with sufficiently large corpus which would be maintained by an unbiased body with various stakeholders under the overall supervision of MoEF;
Imposition of strict conditions and conditions, to ensure that no further environmental degradation occurs and this any degradation that has already took place would be rectified within the time-bound schedule.
MoEF doesn't have objective and measurable norms. Therefore, rather than restricting themselves to environmental issues, it has resorted to questioning express government
jurisdiction, Special Planning Power, MKVDC land copy, land purchase, Lavasa get good at plan acceptance by collector, Hill Station policy, regional development plan, MRTP Work, etc. These haves nothing in connection with environmental issues.
Naresh Dayal, chairman of the technological committee, after concluding his site visit made a assertion to the advertising in Pune that there was no major environmental degradation yet the report seems to magnify minimal environmental issues to justify continuance of the stop work order.
There were more than 1, 000 villagers helping Lavasa, whereas those helping Medha Patkar were a mere dozen. Yet
the committee gives more space to highlighting issues of Patkar's supporters.
Any street under structure in hilly locations requires trimming which looks tough and bare initially. Reference photographs contained in the report only show such roads in the early stages
of building and which were only about 5 km in length. It has quickly stored out the photographs of over 100 km of roads which may have been finished with enhanced renewable cover.
Conclusion:
With all the above observations completed by the federal government constituted committee, post-facto renewable signal to Phase-I of Lavasa by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) given on the November 9th, 2011 was extensively condemned by many intellectual teams and was announced as a blot on the democratic process. In addition, it created a shockingly dangerous precedent in the annals of environmental action in India. MoEF's inappropriate action has in fact delivered shock-waves to eco-activists within the united states and also around the world. Though it is not the first time in the long history of Indian Environmental clearance program that political highhandedness has been used to subvert guideline of rules and the ends of justice, this case is exclusive since the clearance has disregarded well established evidence predicated on facts gathered by no other than the MoEF itself. It is unusual that the Ministry's decision has come in the wake of the case registered by the Maharashtra federal government against 15 persons including promoters of Lavasa Corporation for alleged violations of the Environment Protection Act (EPA), as the Maharashtra Main Minister on the other hand has advised that Lavasa be looked at for environmental clearance, uncovered the double benchmarks of the state.
