A special Bench of the National Green Tribunal has directed all States and Union Territories not to raise or construct hard structures for erosion control, as they cause adverse impacts upstream or downstream.
The Bench, headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel, said that as suggested in a report submitted by the National Institute of Ocean Technology [NIOT], there was a need to replace hard structures like seawalls and groynes with softer options like beach nourishment, sand bypassing, dune planting and offshore submerged reefs, among others.
“The general principle of ‘working with nature’ would be a better approach to cost-effective and sustainable coastal protection measures,” the six-member Bench said.
The directions came in a case related to the destruction of Puducherry’s and Tamil Nadu’s coastal environment due to the construction of hard structures, causing the erosion of the coast.
The special Bench also set aside the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) clearance granted to the Tamil Nadu Public Works Department to a project to construct 19 groynes from Ennore to Ernavoorkuppam in Madhavaram taluk of Tiruvallur district.
“Such hard measures only transfer the problem of shoreline change, until and unless a holistic study is undertaken, keeping in view that sediment cells and appropriate scientific measures taking into consideration both soft and hard,” the Bench said.
The applicant had submitted that the damaging effects of these hard structures transcended State and Union Territory boundaries, and the responsibility for preventing such damage rested equally with the Union government and the governments of the Union Territory of Puducherry and Tamil Nadu.
The Bench said the applicant had exhaustively highlighted the problem of the coastal environment both on the east and west coast of India, that are under the influence of littoral drift.
“We are satisfied that the same needs to be addressed by all coastal States/Union Territories for protection of beaches from human-induced erosion caused by hard structures. Accordingly, we direct the Chief Secretaries of the coastal State/UT to finalise the Coastal Zone Management Plan [CZMP] and get it approved by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change within two months. The approved CZMP shall contain the parameters as listed in the CRZ 2019 Notification, including high, medium and low erosion stretches for such erosion-prone areas,” the Bench said.
It also directed that the Shoreline Management Plan (SMP) be prepared as illustrated by NIOT for erosion-prone areas. “Pending preparation/updation of such SMPs by the Coastal States/UTs, no further hard structures for erosion control [are to] be raised or constructed,” the Bench said.
With regard to the CRZ clearance for the project to lay groynes in the Ennore- Ernavoorkuppam stretch, the Bench noted that the main ground for challenging the clearance was that the construction would cause an adverse impact by obstructing littoral drift. The Bench noted that the CRZ clearance ignored this aspect.
