CHENNAI: The fight against the Neduvasal hydrocarbon project reached the National Green Tribunal on Monday, where a petition has been filed requesting a permanent injunction.
The sources in the NGT told Express that M Selvaraj, president, Pudukottai Vadakadu Neduvasal Pakuthi Pasana and Vivasaigal Nala Sangam, has filed the petition and will be represented by MDMK chief Vaiko. The petition is likely to come up for hearing in a few days.
The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Directorate General of Hydrocarbons, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited, Gem Laboratories, TN Government, Department of Environment, TN State Pollution Control Board and Pudukottai collectors were made parties.
Selvaraj alleged in the petition that many countries across the world had abandoned the idea of hydrocarbon extraction due to environmental issues. It was surprising that ONGC carried out initial field investigation and sank wells a few years ago on the Cauvery delta district without any public hearing or environmental impact assessment.
“The hydrocarbon extraction process involves drilling holes to extract oil or natural gas from great depth scaling to thousands of feet .
This would cause a huge environmental degradation. Gem Laboratories, which won the contract, is new to the field of exploration but was permitted to explore all kinds of hydrocarbons. Also, the policy note on unified licence suggests that there would be no control on the contractor,” Selvaraj said.
In view of this, the petitioner asked the tribunal to issue an permanent injunction from carrying out any activity relating to hydrocarbon, coal bed methane, shale gas, crude oil, oil resources exploration in Neduvasal village till all the environmental, statutory clearances were obtained by Gem Laboratories.