CHENNAI: The Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has informed the Supreme Court, through a note submitted as part of its affidavit, that it has granted environmental clearance (EC) to the India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) project in Tamil Nadu after following an elaborate procedure including Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) and public hearing.
As per the documents available with TNIE, Dharmendra Kumar Gupta, director of the environment ministry’s infrastructure division, has submitted the note. However, Theni Collector KV Muralidharan told TNIE that claims about public hearing being held for the project were false and, according to sources, no comprehensive EIA was carried out for the project in Tamil Nadu.
Incidentally, the Tamil Nadu government told the court recently that it cannot allow the project to come up inside the tiger corridor and compromise the well-being of the ecologically-fragile Western Ghats in Theni district.
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, applied for Environmental Clearance (EC) on July 25, 2017, for the proposal as Category B ‘Building and Construction Project’ before the Tamil Nadu State Environmental Assessment Authority (SEIAA). The application, however, was rejected by the authority saying that the proposal is not eligible for consideration under the stated category as it involves many technical features apart from construction.
Later, a fresh application was filed before the Union environment ministry for EC on January 5, 2018. The ministry decided to appraise the proposal at the central-level considering its “national importance” and treated it as a Category B project since its construction area was less than the one stipulated under EIA Notification 2006 for Category A projects. The Centre issued an EC on March 26, 2018.
G Sundarrajan of Poovulagin Nanbaragal, petitioner in the Supreme Court case, told TNIE, “One of our main grounds of challenge of the INO project is that the ministry issued the EC considering it as a Category B project, taking away the requirement of public hearing. Clearly, neither the Union government nor the INO scientists are helping themselves by peddling lies before the apex court.”
In an RTI reply dated March 21, 2018, the Theni district environmental engineer said a public hearing was not conducted for the INO project. In the affidavit filed on behalf of Tamil Nadu before the SC, Additional Chief Secretary Supriya Sahu had said that though the tunnel in which experiments would be conducted would lie about a km below the ground, there would be enormous allied establishments and activities, such as blasting, excavations, and movement of vehicles.
“Movement and placement of heavy and sophisticated instruments inside the tunnel and a security environment built all around would bring enormous disturbance to tigers and they will ultimately start avoiding this corridor and will have no other alternative for genetic dispersion.”