Puducherry: Puducherry Lt Governor Kiran Bedi has sought National Green Tribunal’s (NGT) intervention in the ongoing beach restoration and port development project to ensure total objectivity.
“An Appeal to NGT to please step in. We need an independent watch on this. It’s been a huge struggle last several months,” said Ms Bedi. Though Dredging Corporation of India (DCI) suspended dredging of the fishing harbour on Saturday itself, the environmentalists appealed to Lt Governor complaining that that silt and toxic waste from the contaminated inner channel continued to be released through pipelines into the sea near Seagulls restaurant here. Alliance for Good Governance (AGG), a group of civil society organisations, has urged Bedi to delink the beach nourishment and clearance of navigation channel projects in a written representation.
Bedi suggested the total project can be executed under the watch of NGT to ensure total objectivity to save Puducherry beach. DCI was assigned to dredge three lakh cubic metre of sand and deposit them at the stipulated place, 4km from harbour mouth for the beach nourishment project. On the last week of July DCI declared that it has completed the project. MARG Karaikkal, a private dredger, had been sanctioned to dredge 75,000 cubic metre sand in the harbour mouth and funds has been diverted from the beach nourishment project for this, violating loan conditions. Apart from this the dredger was discharging contaminated sludge and solid waste into the sea in violation of the environmental clearance for the project. Though earlier the sewage discharge was stopped following objections from civil society organisations and environmentalists the disposal was resumed on Wednesday raising serious concerns about health and environmental hazards.
“How can we allow this to happen? Will all this sewage and garbage be pumped into what will soon be our beach? The port department was ready to stop the sewage discharging only late Wednesday after we met Lt Governor and senior officials,” said Probir Banerjee of AGG. AGG also alleged that instead of three lakh cubic metre, only about 65,000 cubic metres of sand was used for beach nourishment project and sought actions against port officials.
