MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court recently directed the state government not to put up any permanent structures on the seashore along the TN coast without obtaining Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) clearance.
A bench of justices N Sathish Kumar and M Jothiraman gave the direction while disposing of a PIL filed by an advocate B Ramkumar Adityan, against the ongoing construction of detached, submerged offshore breakwaters and groynes in the seashore near Subramaniya Swamy temple in Tiruchendur.
Adityan alleged that the above works are being carried out based on a GO passed by the Religious Endowments department on June 26, 2025, to tackle soil erosion on the shore near the temple. But, the authorities started the work last December, without obtaining any statutory approval of CRZ clearance, he alleged.
Moreover, the soil erosion, which has led to violent waves that carved away over eight feet of the beach’s depth and exposed coral reefs, was a man-made disaster caused by the fisheries department authorities by the construction of similar structures at the Amali Nagar fish landing centre and other nearby beaches, he claimed.
The authorities had carried out the said work despite an Environmental Impact Assessment report by the National Centre for Coastal Research (NCCR), warning against the same, he added.
Though NCCR advised that these hard structures should be replaced with softer options, the authorities ignored the report and carried on with the works in Amali Nagar project and at the temple shore, without getting CRZ clearance, Adityan said and sought directions to the fisheries department not to construct such structures along the TN coast in the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean without statutory clearances.