CUTTACK: The Orissa High Court has sought a response from the State Government to a PIL seeking a halt to the ongoing reclamation of Mahanadi river at Cuttack for the proposed Baliyatra River Front Improvement (BARFI) project.
The Court sought a reply from the Government on the PIL filed by Shivsankar Mohanty, a city-based lawyer. Mohanty filed the petition after there was no response to a notice he had issued under Orissa High Court Public Interest Litigation Rules, 2010 to authorities concerned nearly eight months ago. The notice had sought steps to stop the ‘illegal and unauthorised’ sand filling on Mahanadi river bank for construction of the project.
Though Mohanty had not received any response to the notice, official communications annexed to the petition indicated that his notice had prompted Director (Environment) K Murugesan to ask the State Environment Impact Assessment Authority to investigate into the allegations on January 16.
The Director had sought a reply from the Member Secretary of SEIAA, H&UD department and Odisha State Pollution Control Board in this regard.
The outcome is not known till date. When the petition came up for hearing through video conferencing on Thursday, Mohanty appeared in person. Taking note of his submissions, the division bench of Chief Justice Mohammad Rafiq and Justice KR Mohapatra fixed September 29 for hearing on the matter along with the Government reply.The State counsel received notices on behalf of Principal Secretary of H&UD, Principal Secretary of Revenue and Disaster Management, Engineer-in-Chief of Water Resources and Cuttack Collector to file their responses to the petition by then.
The petition has pointed out that Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik after visiting a reclaimed river area at Matamatha on January 23 had announced that, “Around 424 acre of reclaimed river will be utilised to add ecological, recreational, sporting, cultural and technological value in the lives of people of Cuttack.”