Ministry of Environment and Forest plans to ban new project on High erosion zones

07 Jun 2011 Evaluate
The environment ministry is planning to ban new projects which are proposed in the high erosion zones along the Indian coastline. The ministry has undertaken a satellite imagery assessment of nation’s coastline, based on the imagery assessment high erosion zone will be identified and ministry will not give permission to setup any new project in high erosion zones. The Jairam Ramesh Environment and Forest minister, said, “The satellite imagery assessment is completed for the coasts of Gujarat, Orissa and Puducherry. We will have the imagery of the entire coastline, covering all coastal States, by August this year”. “The existing ports in these zones will be asked to take additional precautions,” he added.

With reference to hazard line mapping of nation’s coastal areas minister said, it was a Rs. 120 crore project being executed by the Survey of India and would be completed in two years.

“Hazard line mapping will cover the India’s 5400 km coastline from Gujarat to W. Bengal. After demarcation of the hazard line, it will give some picture as to which coastal areas are vulnerable to floods, cyclones and tsunami, which are the annual phenomenon. Coastline erosion is a long term phenomenon,” Jairam Ramesh added. 

The ministry is also considering a suggestion to carry out Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) on its own for project coming up in eco-sensitive areas and projects having multiple units. At present, the Environment Impact Assessment is done by the promoters of the projects. Environment minister Jairam Ramesh said will take a decision on this by the end of the year. 

According to him, the biggest disadvantage of current EIAs was that these were carried out by the project promoters and hence it is more like a self assessment. The Environment Minister said the Ministry will also seek to encourage State governments to undertake cumulative environment assessments for projects that were coming up in areas which already had a large concentration of industrial units. 

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