CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu government on Tuesday cited the pending legal process of delineating the boundaries to deny violations alleged by the NGO Arappor Iyakkam in granting of environmental clearance and other approvals to a housing project of a private realtor inside the limits of the Pallikaranai wetlands, which was declared as a Ramsar site in 2022.
In a statement, the environment, climate change and forest department said, “The Pallikaranai wetland limits as part of the Ramsar site will come into force only after the delineation of the extent with specific survey numbers is completed by ground truthing followed by notification.”
Arappor Iyakkam’s allegations last week were regarding the project named Brigade Morgan Heights with 1,250 apartment units coming up on the Perumbakkam Main Road.
The government’s statement made a distinction between the Pallikkaranai Marsh Reserve Forest (PMRF) spanning 698 hectares that was already a reserve forest and the ‘designated’ Ramsar site that covers an additional area of 550 hectares.
It said the total area of 1,248 hectares will get notified as a ‘wetland’ as per the Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2017, only after ‘ground truthing’ as per rules and delineating boundaries with specific survey numbers of land parcels other than the area already declared as reserve forest. The National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management was given the task of delineating the boundaries with specific survey numbers in November 2024, the statement said.
The statement emphasised that the the survey numbers mentioned in the allegations are private patta lands as per available revenue records and are not part of the PMRF under the forest department. It did not explicitly say whether these survey numbers fell within the designated Ramsar site.
“It is informed that the approvals have been given by the authorities concerned only on the private patta lands outside the present PMRF boundaries as the Ramsar site is yet to be clearly delineated,” the statement, however, added.
In response, the NGO said the government’s response raised more questions than answers. “They have tried to say that there is no Ramsar Pallikaranai Marshland ‘officially’ in the first place yet. It only shows that there is no political will to save the marshland.
What is the purpose of designation as a Ramsar site if the government is not interested in preserving it,” it said in a statement. Citing Section II of the Wetland Rules, the NGO further argued that the Ramsar site is protected from its date of designation and it need not be notified for its applicability to be covered under the rules.
