Unregulated hill development is disastrous

We have been screaming literally from the rooftops about the all-round neglect of the environment, the country's noises abroad on COP and other platforms notwithstanding.

To cite an example, the Union Environment Minister spoke at length at a global conference about the importance of mangroves in protecting the coasts whereas in India we treat the intertidal plants with scant respect.

Majority of the 1,250 hectares of land allotted for NMSEZ in Uran across Mumbai harbour is either mangrove zone or intertidal wetland. This SEZ has been de-notified as of February 2019 as per an information received by your truly under the RTI Act from the Union Commerce Ministry. Yet the project continues with the same SEZ name. This is happening in the so-called progressive state of Maharashtra.

Coming back to the hills, we were taught in primary schools that it takes millions of years for the hills and mountains to form. Now we see that it takes hardly any time to flatten the natural formation. We were also taught that the hills play a big role in halting rain clouds and maintaining biodiversity. But there is no official who bothers about them.

Look at the way we have been plundering the Himalayas in the name of infrastructure development. Hills have been mercilessly cut for road construction from Chandigarh to Shimla and this has caused landslides burying hundreds of vehicles. Consider the destruction of the Western Ghats and don't forget the disasters that we have seen in Kerala and Coorg. The Konkan Railway route often witnesses landslides in the hills leading to suspension of trains.

Our construction experts feel that we can prevent landslides by putting up strong wire mesh. Unfortunately, they are being proved wrong time and again.

Hills are being exploited from the top, on the slopes, at the foot hill and much more dangerously, in the middle. Did someone say greed? Yes. That's the word.

Everybody is talking about Joshimath. No doubt, the pilgrim centre has a very strong connection with the religious feelings, the area is also very important from the standpoint of lives and livelihoods of the people living there. People live dangerously on soil formed by landslides. It does not require any expertise to tell you that you can't have any construction on such loose soil.

The Joshimath episode is just the tip of a large iceberg as the rampant destruction of hills in the name of development in various parts of the country, including the Northeast and Andaman &Nicobar Islands, can lead to many more disasters of Himalayan scale.

We have written to President Droupadi Murmu, PM Narendra Modi and of course Environment Minister Bhupendra Yadav drawing their attention to this and the repeated incidents of landslides in Mumbai and elsewhere which are Nature's warnings against playing with the hills and hill slopes.

Nobody seems to have ownership over the hills. The Forest Department allows diversion – meaning destruction – for infrastructure or housing projects, the revenue department is concerned with the collection of royalty from hill digging or quarrying and the Environment department merely passes the buck.

There is a tendency to run down environmental concerns as anti-development. Yet, I stick my neck out to stress the need for a serious look at the impact of infrastructure projects on nature and the lives of the people who live in those areas.

For instance, Maharashtra government-owned city planners such as CIDCO have allotted 200 plots on Parsik Hill and planned a township on Kharghar Hills in Navi Mumbai.

The Kharghar Hill development project is shocking to say the least. The Kharghar Hill Nature Park idea that was developed in association with BNHS seems to have been given a go-by.

On top of it, CIDCO said the township will have access to the Nature Park. How on earth can anyone have a massive residential colony touching a nature park and play with the biodiversity?

To cite a recent incident, the Maharashtra CM sent a series of complaints regarding the cutting of slopes of Parsik and Kharghar Hills to the Forest and Environment departments. But none of these authorities showed any inclination to take action.

The Parsik Hill had a landslide during the last monsoon and the NMMC's water supply monitoring station escaped a major disaster.

This might look like a "small incident" for the planning agencies and authorities, but they are playing with the lives of people. We wonder as to how it does not strike the government officials that cutting the Parsik Hill slope, with hundreds of buildings on top of it, would endanger the homes and the people.

Thanks to the intervention of the Human Rights Commission, which has taken a suo motu notice of the dangers as pointed out in media reports, we can now expect justice.

Despite the recurring landslides at hills in Mumbai, the authorities have not checked mushrooming slum colonies in both the eastern and western suburbs.

Our ministers and officials seem to be interested only in lip-service at the time of disasters and forget about the tragedies later.

The upcoming highway projects through the hills in the State could also prove to be dangerous. Neither meaningful public hearings nor any environment impact assessment (EIA) is done beforehand. This assessment process is not being done with transparency. It is not difficult to ensure transparency in these days of technology.

The public objection and suggestion records must be displayed in public domain – the websites. This is essential to ensure accountability. The officials who ignore warnings about disasters must be held accountable and punished wherever they are. IAS officers who hold top positions get transferred every three years or with the change of governments to suit the Minister's interests. Their accountability, whatever little is shown on record, disappears the moment they get shifted. This system must change.

The officials, however influential they are, must be made accountable for the environmental and other blunders that they committed in their previous assignments. The current unfortunate situation is that the people who live in the disaster-prone area suffer while those who are responsible for such tragedies go scot free.

Pardon me if I have digressed from the main point of regulatory provisions for the hills across the States. But allow me to drive home a key point that the regulatory provisions – in any area, be it the coastal zone, hills, financial services or any public service - must make the officials who hold key positions accountable just as we blacklist erring contractors.

(The author is a Mumbai-based media veteran, known for his thought-provoking messaging. The views expressed are personal)