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The National Green Tribunal (NGT) restricted Tirupati Urban Development Authority and Garuda Varadhi Tirupati Smart City Project from trespassing into the Avilala Cheruvu, a tank near Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh.
The tribunal restricted any constructions, either temporary or permanent, in the guise of beautification of the tank.
The judgment was passed by Justice K Ramakrishnan of the NGT Southern Zone bench in Chennai. The bench was responding to an application filed by two pressure groups, Avilala Cheruvu Parirakshana Samithi and Swarnamukhi Bachavo Andolan Samiti.
The petitioners alleged that respondents were carrying out large-scale constructions in the catchment area of Avilala Cheruvu.
The tribunal directed the district collector, Tirupati, to remove those constructions which have not obtained permission from the irrigation department and the government.
The district collector is also directed to take steps to restore the water body. This includes strengthening the bund, periodic desilting of the water body and enhancing the water storing capacity.
The inlet and outlets of the tank should be restored for the collection of surplus rainwater during the rainy season, the NGT added. The petitioners also alleged that permissions were granted for certain constructions associated with Sri Venkateswara Spiritual Theme Park Project.
This included constructing gardens, hills, forests, lakes and islands, among others.
The National Highways Authority of India has started constructing the 4/6 lane of the Gurgaon-Rewari section of the NH-352W project, stated a joint committee report submitted before the NGT.
Most of the trees in Gurugram and Rewari forest divisions, for which permission has been granted by the forest department and the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, have been felled.
The report was submitted in response to an appeal filed by Vivek Kamboj and others.
Guidelines of the ministry of road transport and highways were not followed during the expansion, the appellants alleged. The guidelines stated that the expansion of highways should be done on one side of the road to avoid the felling of trees on the other side.
As per the inspection report, the land is being acquired on either side of the road, which makes the felling of trees inevitable on both sides.
There is no reason to interfere with the scheme and methodology of the Comprehensive Environmental Pollution Index (CEPI) score, the NGT stated. The scheme has been continuing for more than a decade, the tribunal added.
CEPI score aims at categorising critically polluted industrial areas based on scientific criteria to ascertain various dimensions of pollution.
The 219-page judgment of the NGT was in response to the suo-moto action initiated by the tribunal in response to a newspaper report on the ranking of industrial clusters in respect of pollution.