NGT junks green nod for Ennore polymer park

CHENNAI: The Southern Bench of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) set aside the Environmental Clearance (EC) granted to the Polymer Industrial Park proposed in Ennore and told the State Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA) to make a fresh review of the biodiversity of the project site. 
As per the 1996 Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP), the project site is marked as a salt pan and tidally influenced waterbody. 

Challenging the EC, Chennai-based activist K Saravanan filed a petition before the NGT. The NGT bench, comprising judicial member Justice K Ramakrishnan and expert member K Satyagopal, while disposing of the case, sought an Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) report to be prepared by an accredited agency. Most of the area has been filled with fly ash and the EIA report will consider the permissibility of using untreated wet fly ash to fill the area and its impact. 

The tribunal said the study must also identify the flora and fauna of the place and the presence of any migratory bird. “After getting the EIA report, SEIAA is directed to place it before the State Expert Appraisal Committee (SEAC),” the order said. The bench directed the SEIAA to complete the process of assessment within nine months. 

The petitioner alleged that the project was proposed inside the Ennore Pulicat wetland complex and the site is a tidally influenced waterbody. It was classified as a salt pan in the revenue records. Saravanan said in the petition that Tamil Nadu Polymer Industries Park Limited suppressed the fact that it is a waterbody and referred to it as patta dry land and government poramboke land. In the pre-feasibility report, the project site was described as plain terrain with no notified forest or waterbodies and the land is predominantly barren.

The park is a special purpose vehicle with Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation Limited and State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu Limited as joint-venture partners. The authorities said the park will create world-class infrastructure and a common technology centre at a cost of Rs 3,000 crore.