State Coastal Zone Management Authority to Check Costal Violations on Vembanad Lake

26 August 2013
Kochi

With the Supreme Court deadline for naming the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) violations on Vembanad Lake and islands nearing, the Kerala State Coastal Zone Management Authority (KSCZMA) will meet this weekend to take stock of the situation.

V.R. Rajasekhanaran Pillai, Executive Vice-President of the authority, said a special meeting of the authority would look into the apex court order and decide on the course of action.

Dr. Pillai said information available on CRZ violations and action initiated on those cases would be compiled and communicated to the apex court in the first phase.

“A mechanism needs to be evolved to detect any violations that have gone unnoticed. The support of agencies like Centre for Earth Science Studies will have to be requested for the job.”

The Supreme Court had earlier this month directed the State government and other agencies concerned to explain the steps “they have taken to implement CRZ, in the lake and Islands as a whole, steps they have taken to restore the illegally reclaimed banks of the lake, steps taken to avert pollution” within six weeks.

The court took suo moto notice that Vembanad Backwaters was “undergoing severe environmental degradation and there has been large scale encroachment and constructions going on in violation of the CRZ Notifications.

The backwater is also highly polluted due to indiscriminate discharge of effluents into the lake.”

The apex court felt that the “effective implementation of CRZ Notifications also requires serious attention at the hands of KCZMA. The necessity of restoring land encroached into the backwaters as well as removing the illegal construction effected in violation of the CRZ Notifications of 1991 and 2011 needs urgent action.”

The apex court intervention would have widespread ramifications in the State as a large number of apartment and commercial complexes, including hotels and resorts, have come up in the coastal belt violating the CRZ guidelines.

Source– http://www.thehindu.com/

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