NGT imposes ₹243cr fine on Andhra govt
HYDERABAD: The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Thursday imposed a penalty of ₹243 crores on the Andhra Pradesh government for violating environmental norms while executing the construction of the Polavaram multi-purpose irrigation project and three of its associated schemes built on the Godavari river.
Acting on a batch of petitions filed since 2018, Justice Sudhir Agarwal of the principal bench of NGT in New Delhi, who reserved his judgment on August 9, pronounced his 426page order on Thursday.
The tribunal imposed a penalty of ₹120 crores towards environmental compensation on Polavaram major irrigation project, ₹24.56 crores on Purushottapatnam lift irrigation ₹24.90 crores on Pattiseema lift irrigation scheme and ₹73.63 crores on Chintalapudi lift irrigation scheme – all on Godavari river in East and West Godavari districts.
The tribunal said the penalty was 1.5% of the total project cost of the three lift irrigation schemes. The project cost for the Purushottapatnam lift scheme is ₹1,637 crore, Pattiseema, ₹1,660 crores and that of Chintalapudi, ₹4,909 crores. The first two lift schemes were completed during the previous Telugu Desam Party government before 2019 and the Chintalapudi lift scheme is half complete.
For the Polavaram major irrigation project, the environmental compensation was fixed at only 0.75% of the original project cost of ₹16,010 crores, as there was no violation regarding obtaining environmental clearance, but there were violations in other environmental aspects, the tribunal said.
The tribunal dealt with the damage caused to the environment by these projects, such as erosion of huge quantity of top soil, sand and rock all along the project canals and unscientific way of dumping the excavated material without taking any requisite precautions, apart from affecting the flora and fauna in submergence areas of the Polavaram major irrigation project.
The tribunal directed that the state government pay environmental compensation to the Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board within three months.
Prominent environmentalist Prof K Purushottam Reddy said: “The verdict should be an eyeopener for other states as well.”