The National Green Tribunal on Friday directed the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) and the Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) to show whether they have any comprehensive guidelines for concretisation of landscapes in urban areas. A bench headed by NGT chairperson Swatanter Kumar directed the MoEF and GDA to “file an affidavit stating whether there are complete and comprehensive guidelines and if so, how are they being enforced.”
The Tribunal also asked the GDA to show if they require any environmental clearance from the MoEF or the State Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA) before carrying out any concretisation or tiling of the landscape. It also asked the GDA if it was following the policy of leaving some area for water to seep in.
The green panel was hearing a petition filed by Akash Vashishtha, an environmentalist, who had submitted a plea saying nearly 40 per cent of the surface area of Raj Nagar District Park in Ghaziabad had been covered by constructions violating the condition that only five per cent can be concretised. After looking at the pictures of landscape in Ghaziabad being concretised and tiled, the bench remarked, “If you (GDA) see what you are doing, it will take more time for water to seep in the kind of concretisation work you are carrying out. You will imbalance the groundwater. You must leave space for water to seep in.”