A committee formed by the southern bench of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has found that a developer in Periyakulam taluk in Theni district had commenced work on a project without getting Environmental Clearance and consent from the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board and is continuing to violate the provisions of the Water and Air Acts.

The case relates to an application filed by an advocate that Bahri Estates Pvt. Ltd. had developed a retirement community layout at Genguvarpatti in Periyakulam taluk on 121.84 acres. The project had 298 allotted plots with 172 sold to individuals and 103 villas being constructed.

In January, the Tribunal directed a panel to inspect and ascertain whether the project was begun without EC and its impact on eco-sensitive areas and forest, wildlife and waterbodies.

A nine-member committee in its report submitted that “the developer has excluded seven acres of land from the layout in order to avoid the process of EC.“Based on the NOCs obtained and actual utilisation of adjoining area, the area of project activity is more than 50 hectares and thus it attracts the provisions of schedule 8(b) (B1 category) of the EIA Notification, 2006, which needs to be appraised by the SEIAA-Tamil Nadu.”

The panel said that based on TNPCB’s direction, the developer in 2014 applied for EC before the SEIAA-TN, but it was pending. The developer did not use the six-month window in 2017 for entities not complying with environment regulation.

The developer had submitted a letter to SEIAA stating that the project had been approved as residential layout by the DTCP and also for proposed future development in the same layout of 49.31 hectares, the committee said.

They also found that the project was just 35 metres away from the boundary of the Kodaikanal Wildlife Sanctuary and it was mandatory to get the clearance from the National Board for Wildlife, which has notified an area to an extent of 1 km around the boundary of the sanctuary as eco-sensitive zone.

After perusing the report, the Tribunal asked the committee to submit an ‘action taken report’ and assess environmental compensation for the violations.