No impediment to capital project, says govt.

Late on Tuesday, CRDA officials and the Chief Minister’s communications advisor Parakala Prabhakar told The Hindu that the capital project has indeed been cleared by the State Environmental Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA) but the Government could not furnish it to the NGT as a “hard copy”. But since the clearance has been obtained, there would be no impediment to the capital project, or even the ceremony, they said.

However, a highly placed source said the State government has at the present moment not got the required environmental clearances from SEIAA. “The SEIAA is assessing the project and that is in the final stage. It will take at least two to three days for it to arrive at a decision,” the source said. The SEIAA is constituted by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF) to clear ‘B’ category projects at the state level. The Union Ministry appointed a 15-member committee comprising professors and a convener (a special secretary of the government) to assist the SEIAA. The committee has rendered its views to the SEIAA, which will now take a call on the matter.

Projects cleared by SEIAA need not be ratified by Delhi, sources said.

Meanwhile, the petitioner who took the capital project to the NGT, Mr Pandalaneni Srimannarayana, said he would file a contempt petition against the State Government for ignoring the orders of the tribunal. Former administrator of Chandigarh City and IAS officer M G Devasahayam explained that NGT does not have the power to act on contempt petitions, but it could refer them to the High Court.

Contracting the government’s stance that the NGT fiat was not a stay order, green activist Satya Bolisetti said the tribunal’s Oct. 10 order clearly “directed” the State of Andhra Pradesh not to carry out any clearing of land falling in the project area without obtaining environment clearances.

Former Union secretary E.A.S. Sarma said the Prime Minister would be tainted if he attended a foundation stone function for a project that does not, as of the moment, have the required clearances. The Oct. 22 programme is violative of not only the NGT order and provisions of the Andhra Pradesh Re-Organisation Act, but it also a Supreme Court order to the Government of Karnataka disallowing land acquisition prior to the grant of environmental clearance for a project. This was done to safeguard the interests of farmers run the risk of losing their land if the project failed to get environmental clearance, he said.

Mr Sarma said yet another legal requirement has to be fulfilled by the Andhra Pradesh Government and CRDA in preparing agricultural land for the foundation stone function. According to The Andhra Pradesh Agricultural Land (conversion for non-agricultural purpose) Act, 2006, (amended in 2012) it is necessary for the land owner to take prior permission for change of land use. According to the Act, “no agricultural land in the State shall be put to non-agricultural purposes, without the prior permission of the competent authority”. The competent authority in this case is the High Court, Mr Sarma said.

The NGT put on record an order passed by the Vijayawada chief engineer ordering the dismantling of the LT lines and transformers providing power to the agricultural services in Thulluru and Tadepalli Mandals that fall in the project area.

Petitioner, who took the capital project to the NGT, says he will file a contempt petition against the State for ignoring the orders of the tribunal