Madurai
The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has directed Madurai Corporation to submit a report on the proposal to install the gasifier in the Karpaganagar crematorium after the local residents complained that it was coming up on a waterbody.
A Division Bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice T.S. Sivagnanam directed the Corporation to submit the report in four weeks. The court was hearing the petition filed by the President of Madurai Karpaganagar Nagarathar Sangam K.N. Subramanian.
The court said that the petitioner referred to a court decree passed in 1991 and complained of the gasifier being put up on a water body. Revenue records showed that some part of the area was a water body.
The Regional Transport Office and other government departments have set up offices here for over 30 years. A crematorium is also there in the area. Pursuant to the appeal made by the residents, a less polluting variant of the gasifier was proposed to be installed.
Even if it was accepted that the waterbody area that existed is no longer there in view of the various offices set up, every attempt should be made to avoid the remaining part of the waterbody and the installation must be made beyond the boundaries of the waterbody.
It was open to the Corporation to consider the location of the crematorium beyond residential areas and earmark such places since residential areas have grown around places that were once earmarked as crematorium.
It was best to set up new crematoriums away from the residential places subject to distance not being far, making it inconvenient to people to reach as there was no denial that however much the pollution emitted was controlled the foul stench cannot be gotten rid of, the court observed. The case was adjourned till August 27.
