In a significant ruling the Uttarakhand High Court ordered on Monday a stay on the conversion of park area in the industrial estate at Selaqui here by State Infrastructure and Industrial Development Corporation of Uttarakhand ltd (SIIDCUl) into industrial plots.
Acting on a PIl filed by Citizens For Green Doon, the court also prevented SIIDCUl from issuing more plots to industrial enterprises and issued notices to SIIDCUl and other agencies concerned in this case.
According to the chief coordinator of CFGD, Dr Nitin Pandey, the six-acre park with hundreds of trees was clearly labelled as a park in the master plan of the area. However, in the new proposed master plan, SIIDCUl had made a new series of industrial plots in the park area and has already allotted two such plots to different industrial enterprises.
Pandey said any change in the green area in the Doon valley requires approval of the Ministry of Environment and Forests since Doon valley is an eco-sensitive zone and since the conversion orchestrated by SIIDCUl was done without the necessary approval from the MoEF, it was blatantly illegal.
He also said that CFGD had written to SIIDCUl and to the Supreme Court Monitoring Committee twice, but nothing happened and the group was forced to approach the HC in this case.
It is worth mentioning here that while the authorities claimed to be facilitating measures to achieve industrial development and planned urbanisation in Dehradun, various projects started by the government had elicited opposition from concerned citizens and environmentalists.
The setting up of a Coca Cola bottling plant at Chharba and axing of green trees from Parade Ground for road widening are some of the projects which have been opposed by citizens accusing the authorities of orchestrating anomalies for execution of such works.