MoEF to submit Lavasa report in Bombay HC today

Agencies

New Delhi, 17 January 2011: The Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) will on Monday submit a report prepared by its Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) on the environmental impact of Lavasa hill city in the Bombay High Court on Monday.

The fate of Lavasa, planned across 25,000 acres in Baramati district near Pune, hangs in balance after objections were raised over the ecological impact of the project by MoEF and several non-government organizations.

On November 25, the MoEF had issued a stop-work notice for the Lavasa project saying it violated some environmental rules. It also asked the company why some structures built after 2004 shouldn’t be demolished.

The corporation then approached the Bombay High Court, which instructed the Ministry to send an expert team to the project site to evaluate the ecological impact of the project and to find out whether environmental rules were violated.

 
The 11-EAC led by Naresh Dayal last week visited the Lavasa hill station project and submitted its report to the MoEF on January 10.

The construction of the project was held up for want of environmental clearance.

The EAC chairman Naresh Dayal while responding to the press in Pune had said that prima facie there was no large-scale destruction of forest cover at Lavasa. He had also said it would not affect water supply to Pune city.

 
The comments made by Dayal had come as a relief to Lavasa Corporation Ltd, which had got into trouble after it was first reported that the project had come under the scanner of the MoEF for allegedly violating environmental norms.

National Alliance of People’s Movement (NAPM) leader Medha Patkar had alleged that the project had led to destruction of forest cover in the region.