The southern bench of the National Green Tribunal on Tuesday directed IIT-Madras to clear all solid waste and construction debris from the campus within a week and ordered the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) and Chennai Corporation to inspect the campus after a week and submit a report.
The bench comprising Justice M.S. Nambiar and expert member P.S. Rao also directed that any event conducted in the IIT-M premises must be within permissible noise levels, while avoiding plastic waste from being strewn around.
“In case, IIT-Madras is found to be guilty of negligence and that results in injury or death of any deer or black buck, serious action would be taken against the institute invoking the ‘polluter pays’ principle,” the bench said. The bench, however, turned down a plea by the petitioner, Antony Rubin, to form a committee to look in to moving IIT-M’s cultural fest Saarang and Shaastra out of the campus.
The IIT-M had earlier this year, admitted in an RTI, that 220 deer and eight blackbucks had died in the campus between 2014 and 2016. Mr. Rubin filed a case at the NGT over these deaths and also over garbage disposal and solid waste management in the campus. Interestingly, in a report submitted by IIT-M at the NGT, the administration said it had sought approval for buildings on the campus built after 2006.
The IIT-M had earlier submitted that removal of plastic waste was being done regularly and measures had been taken to control solid waste in the campus.
