NatConnect to move NGT over absence of Hill development regulatory body

Mumbai, Nov 25: With the Centre confirming the absence of any hill regulatory authority, a city-based environmental group has decided to move the National Green Tribunal to plead for a body to check “mindless” development that is causing Himalayan disasters.

In response to an application filed under the RTI Act by environmentalist B N Kumar, the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has confirmed that the Hill Development Regulatory Authority does not exist.

Kumar, who heads NatConnect Foundation, raised a query with the MOEFCC for information on the hill regulatory authority in view of the Silkyara and Chamoli disasters.

“No information regarding any regulation titled ‘Hill Areas Development Regulations’ or any authority named ‘Hill Areas Development Regulation Authority’ is available with this CPIO”, said the email response from Dr. Susan George K, Scientist ‘E’ from the Mountain Division of the MOEFCC.

This is a typical response given by the authorities to RTI queries when they have no information and this shows clearly there is no regulatory body to govern the hill development.

Alarmed by the landslides and floods in the hill areas, environmentalist Kumar has earlier raised his concern with the Prime Minister and suggested the need for a regulatory body on the lines of coastal zone management authorities.

The PMO referred the issue to the MOEFCC which closed the issue, remarking that there was no specific grievance.

“This is shocking since my letter to the PM spoke of the Himalayan and other hill disasters,” said Kumar. The Concern was also in the context of the Irshalwadi landslide in Raigad district of Maharashtra.

“Our primary concern is that there is no check and control on the mindless development of the so-called infrastructure in the hills which is nothing but an invitation to disaster which has been proved time and again from Kerala to the Himalayas and Maharashtra to the North-east,” NatConnect said.

Adding to this crisis is the massive quarrying that has been allowed legally and ignored illegally around Mumbai and in many places across the country, Kumar said

Different departments such as forest or the environment come into the picture but there is no authority with proper rules and regulations to govern the development of the hills, he said. The Various Hill development Councils appear to be more political than regulatory bodies, he pointed out.

Endorsing NatConnect’s contention, Nandakumar Pawar of Shri Ekvira Aai Pratishtan contended that the hills are public properties and they should not be touched under the guise of development or any other pretext.

Basic infrastructure for the people such as tribals and Adivasis settled in the hills may be fine but not the kind of highway, tunnel and dams development which is absolutely criminal, Pawar said.

The governments, centre in particular, appear to have developed a thick-skin attitude when it comes to taking the local people into confidence before taking up any development in the ecologically sensitive areas, he regretted.