VIJAYAWADA: The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Tuesday directed the State government not to proceed with interlinking of Godavari-Krishna-Penna rivers and construction and operation of Pattiseema, Purushothapatnam and Chintalapudi lift irrigation schemes, without necessary environmental clearance.
The Principal Bench of NGT, headed by Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel, passed the order after considering the report submitted by the Joint Inspection Committee, constituted with officials from Central Pollution Control Board, Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board and Ministry of Environment and Forest.
JIC was constituted on the directions of the NGT in January with M Madhusdhan, additional director of CPCB, B Siva Prasad, joint chief environmental engineer of APCCB, C Palpandi and Sowmya D, scientists from MoEF and CPCB respectively. After extensive inspection, the committee submitted its report on May 30.
In its report, the committee after reviewing the proposed river interlinking project, recommended that before going for any construction activity, a detailed project proposal should be prepared and necessary environmental clearances from MoEF and State government should be taken.
As regards the Godavari-Penna interlinking project, the committee said it is an independent project. It said that the Phase 1 of the project is only at proposal stage and the detailed project report is not yet prepared. The Phase-1 involves transfer of 73 TMC of water from Krishna river at Harishchandrapuram to Nagarjuna Sagar Jawahar Canal at Nekrikellu.
“The Phase-I project does not involve any submergence, forest land or resettlement issues. However, committee after reviewing the entire project proposal is of the opinion that before going for any construction activity, requiring environmental clearance, a detailed project report has to be prepared and necessary statutory clearance/environmental clearance taken from the MoEF and the State government,” it said.
NGT was dealing with the petition filed by former minister Vatti Vasantha Kumar, Trinath Reddy, and 11 other petitioners.Earlier, on May 31, the tribunal in its interim orders had asked the State government to stop the execution of the interlinking of the rivers citing lack of environmental clearance. The tribunal had also pulled up the APPCB for failing to perform its duty of taking appropriate action as per law.