CUTTACK: The National Green Tribunal’s (NGT) five-member bench headed by Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel on Wednesday reserved its judgment on the issue of reclaiming 426 acre of Mahanadi riverbed upstream of the Jobra barrage here.
Earlier on February 7, the tribunal had imposed a ban on construction of permanent structures on the reclaimed river bed area and constituted a committee of seven experts to assess the ecological impact and combined hazard vulnerability.
The bench closed proceedings after hearing the submissions of Advocate General AK Parija on behalf of the State government and Senior Advocate Sisir Das, who argued on behalf of petitioner Pradip Pattnaik.
Armed with the expert committee’s report, Patnaik had sought NGT’s intervention against the reclaiming of the river bed contending that it had caused damage to the environment and the riverine ecosystem.
The expert committee had unanimously observed that the 426 acre of flood plain of the river bed has been illegally reclaimed and recommended against further expanding the extended 34-acre Baliyatra ground on the river bed near the Gadgadia Temple.
“Neither concretization nor compacting with gravel be permitted at extended Baliyatra ground. The whole reclaimed land (426-34 = 392 acre) except the 34 acre of Baliyatra ground may be used for plantation with appropriate local species and the area may be developed into a biological park reviving the old channel buried under sand,” the committee had recommended.“The reclaimed land must not be used for any commercial use,” the report also said.
According to the committee, the removal of sand dump could mitigate the impact of floodwater, retain more water during monsoon, greater recharging of ground water and easy revival of the channels that used to exist.