Hindustan Times (Chandigarh)

NGT orders action against Ansal for flouting green laws

- Dhananjay Jha

GURUGRAM: The National Green Tribunal (NGT) in its order issued on January 8, 2019, has ordered action against the developer of Sushant Lok-1 for several environmen­tal violations committed within the premises of the residentia­l colony.

Shushant Lok-1 was developed by Ansal API Limited in the late 1980s, and the colony is spread across sectors 27, 28, 43, and 52 of the city. In September 2018, the NGT had received a complaint in this regard from a resident of the colony, following which it appointed a five-member committee, comprising officials of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the district town planning department, the Delhi School of Planning and Architectu­re, the Central Groundwate­r Authority(cwga) and the State Environmen­t Impact Assessment Authority(seiaa), and ordered it to submit a factual report. The committee was led a CPCB official. It conducted investigat­ion in Sushant Lok in October and found that the developer had committed a large number of environmen­tal violations, such as encroachme­nts in green areas, illegal extraction of ground water, dumping of untreated sewage in stormwater drains, raising illegal constructi­ons, among others. The committee submitted its report to the NGT in October, 2018. “Committee’s report has revealed encroachme­nts like hutment for security/labours, DG sets, kitchen gardens in earmarked green areas. And green belts have not been developed according to the norms of the licence by the developer as well[sic]” stated the NGT order, directing the committee to exercise its statutory power to take action against the violations within three months. A member of the committee, on condition of anonymity said, “The CPCB will send notices to all the concerned government department­s to implement the NGT order.”

However, Ansal API Limited, which developed Sushant Lok, said that the developer has not committed any violations.

Abhishek Aggarwal, senior vice president of Ansal API,” said, “We will not say anything about the violations mentioned in the report, but to be fair on our part, we have not committed any such violations at all.”sudhir Chauhan, senior town planner (STP), Gurugram, said, “We have not received the order yet. We will comment only after we get details of the order.” GURUGRAM: Data belonging to customers of a private insurance company has allegedly been stolen, and its customers have been getting phone calls from people posing as representa­tives of the company, the police said Sunday. The company too was targeted by spurious callers, who called their customer helplines and asked for policy details of customers.

Officials said an unknown number of customers had been affected in the breach, but added that the company had received at least half a dozen complaints from customers.

The fake representa­tives have been spreading false informatio­n about the company, and customers also received calls from another insurance company offering their services, leading them to suspect that the rival company had a hand in the data breach, the affected company said.

The company said the incident came to light when multiple customers made complaints between August and December 2018.

An investigat­ion by the company revealed that their customer helplines received over 200 calls enquiring about customers’ policy details, from people claiming to be policy-holders’ relative or agents.

 ?? HT ARCHIVES ?? After years of complaint by the residents of the colony, the NGT constitute­d a five-member committee which found gross violations of environmen­tal laws by the developer, who allegedly acted in collusion with DTCP officials.
HT ARCHIVES After years of complaint by the residents of the colony, the NGT constitute­d a five-member committee which found gross violations of environmen­tal laws by the developer, who allegedly acted in collusion with DTCP officials.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from India