Consent for high-rise structures in hilly districts given after ensuring compliance of norms, KSPCB tells NGT

KOCHI

Kerala State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) has informed the National Green Tribunal (NGT) that the consent to operate buildings that exceeded 20,000 sq ft space in the hilly districts of the State is issued only after ensuring that the projects had gained environmental clearance as per the Environmental Impact Assessment Notification, 2006.

The board’s submission came in response to the suo motu case registered by the Southern Bench of the tribunal based on the news item on the Wayanad landslide tragedy published in The Hindu’s online edition dated July 30, 2024.

The Bench comprising Pushpa Sathyanarayana, Judicial Member, and Satyagopal Korlapati, Expert member, had asked the respondents including the Kerala government, Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, KSPCB among others to file a detailed report on various queries ranging from quarrying in the Western Ghats region to regulations in place to prevent construction of high-rise structures in the hilly districts of the State.

On the question of whether the mining activities, involving blasting, are permissible in the Western Ghats region of Kerala, the board stated that mining, quarrying and sand mining (new/expansion) is prohibited in the ecologically-sensitive area as per a direction issued by the Ministry of Environment and Forests on November 13, 2013 under Section 5 of the Environment (Protection) Act, except those cases that were received by the Expert Appraisal Committee/MoEF or State Level Expert Appraisal Committee/State Level Environmental Impact Assessment Authority before April 17, 2013. Such project were dealt under the guidelines and rules applicable at the time of application before the respective committees/authority, it said.

The board issued a circular dated September 9, 2015 that environmental clearance shall be insisted for considering issuance of its consent for all quarrying activities. On the question of whether permissions were given for setting up thermal power projects or expansion of existing units after the year 2010, the board submitted that it has not granted permission for new thermal power projects or expansion of the existing units after 2010.