NGT issues notice to Centre against amendment on Ganga floodplains

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The National Green Tribunal (NGT) issued notice to the Centre on a petition challenging a Jal Shakti Ministry amendment issued earlier this month that removed the “construction-free zone” tag on the Ganga’s floodplains and redefined what counts as a floodplain.

The petition, filed by environmentalist Amit Kumar, argues that the change alters the no-construction zone set out in the 2016 order and wrongly pegs the “active floodplain” to a one-in-five-year flood. The order had defined the floodplain largely by a once-in-100-year flood line. Mr. Kumar contended that the amendment runs counter to earlier rulings of the Tribunal and the High Courts, including a 2017 six-member Bench judgment that treated 100 metres from the river’s edge as a no-development zone on the Haridwar-to-Kanpur stretch.

The amendment in question is to the River Ganga (Rejuvenation, Protection and Management) Authorities Order, 2016.

A Bench of Chairperson Justice Prakash Shrivastava and Expert Member Afroz Ahmad, hearing the matter on August 19, directed the Union government and other respondents to file their replies and listed the case for October 27. The Tribunal did not stay the amendment.

On August 11, The Hindu reported on the amendment notified by the Ministry’s National Mission for Clean Ganga, which, along with the relaxation of construction rules, had also recast the definition of a floodplain into three bands. The “active floodplain” is the area inundated by a flood with a one-in-five-year return period; a “regulatory zone” covers land flooded once in five to 25 years; and a “warning zone” covers land flooded once in 25 to 100 years.

Under that order, issued under the Environment (Protection) Act, permanent and temporary structures for residential, commercial or industrial use were barred on the river, its banks, tributaries and active floodplain, subject to specified exceptions.

A government official had explained the change to The Hindu as “correcting a legal inconsistency” in the original order. Environmentalists, however, had flagged concerns that tying protection to shorter return periods and moving to a clearance-based regime could open land closer to the river to construction and weaken its role as a pollution and recharge buffer.

environmental issues / environmental pollution / rivers / rivers and waterfalls

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