Author: cprindia

We are pleased to share a recently published four-part series in the Hindustan Times on India’s air pollution crisis. Written in collaboration with leading air pollution researchers, the series takes stock of what we know about India’s air pollution so far, and discusses problems we need to consider as we plan for the future.

Understanding the curse of air pollution

Navroz K Dubash and Santosh Harish

December 19, 2018

When, how much, and where we should worry about air pollution? In short, the answers are: most of the time, a lot, and all over India. Air pollution is a year-round problem, and not just restricted to winters. Annual average levels in many parts of India are multiple times the WHO and Indian safe levels – not just in cities or industrial areas, but across the region.

Public health in India a casualty of air pollution

Kalpana Balakrishnan and Shibani Ghosh

December 20, 2018

The evidence that we have about the health impacts of air pollution sends a clear message – there is a crisis unfolding in India. Commissioning additional studies on emissions and impacts will undoubtedly help guide future policy actions. But currently available information and knowledge on health effects and exposure attribution to sources is more than sufficient to move us into ‘mission’ mode.

Delhi has a complex air pollution problem

Navroz K Dubash and Sarath Guttikunda

December 21, 2018

There are at least four discrete sectors that each substantially contribute to Delhi’s pollution: industry; transport; biomass and waste burning; and dust. We must recognise we are dealing with a multi-headed problem, that progress on all sources is needed, that we may not see progress immediately but should stay the course, and that solutions need to be tailored to the specific characteristics of each pollution source.

Air pollution: India is waking up, but there’s a long way to go

Navroz K Dubash, Shibani Ghosh, and Santosh Harish

December 22, 2018

India is waking up to the costs of air pollution. But we have only taken initial, reactive measures toward addressing the challenge. We now need to move to systematic actions built on the foundations of political pressure, public engagement and strategic institutional action.

For more updates on the Clearing the Air series, follow the Initiative on Climate, Energy, and Environment on Twitter and Facebook, or visit the Clearing the Air? project page.

On 26 November 2019, the Initiative on Climate, Energy and Environment (ICEE) at the Centre for Policy Research, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), and Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS) co-hosted a discussion on the linkages between climate change and development pathways.

The discussion, which engaged with the UN Environment Programme’s recently-released Emissions Gap Report 2019, was chaired by R R Rashmi (Distinguished Fellow and Programme Director, Earth Science and Climate Change, TERI). The panellists included Simon Maxwell (Development Economist, and Former Director, Overseas Development Institute), P. K Anand (Visiting Fellow, RIS), Sabyasachi Saha (Assistant Professor, RIS), and Navroz K. Dubash (Professor, CPR and Coordinator, ICEE).

Simon Maxwell’s presentation on the key takeaways from the UN Environment Programme’s Emissions Gap Report 2019 can be found here.

Navroz K. Dubash’s presentation on the implications of the report for India can be found here.

Part 1 of the complete video is given above. To watch the Q+A session following the event, click here.

About the Participants

Rajani Ranjan Rashmi is a Distinguished Fellow in The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). He is a senior member of Indian Administrative service and has been, for several years, India’s principal negotiator for climate change negotiations under the UN FCCC. He served the Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change, Govt of India for almost 8 years before and after the Paris Agreement. He has thus been involved in the making of India’s policy on climate change. He retired last year as the Chief Secretary of Manipur. Besides his position in TERI, Mr Rashmi is also a member of the Technical Advisory Body of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and is associated with the Sub Committee of the Finance Ministry on Climate Finance.

Simon Maxwell is a development economist, with a career spanning fifty years. He worked for ten years overseas, in Kenya, India and Bolivia, for UNDP and the British aid programme, then for fifteen years at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. From 1997-2009, he was Director of the Overseas Development Institute, the UK’s leading independent think-tank on international development and humanitarian issues. He has recently been Executive Chair of the Climate and Development Knowledge Network, Chair of the European Think Tanks Group, and a Specialist Adviser to the International Development Select Committee of the UK House of Commons. Simon is a past President of the Development Studies Association of the UK and Ireland. In 2007, he was awarded a CBE for services to international development. For further information, see www.simonmaxwell.eu.

P. K Anand is a full-time Visiting Fellow at the Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS). He was previously a Senior Consultant at NITI Aayog, working on the SDGs, Appraisal of the 12th Five-Year Plan etc. Before his retirement from the Indian Administrative Service, he served in the State Government of Rajasthan, and was Senior Adviser, Planning Commission of Government of India (GoI) heading Development Monitoring & Evaluation Organization, and handling work related to several Ministries. He holds M.Sc. in Physics and Economics (LSE), and a PhD in Economics.

Sabyasachi Saha is Assistant Professor at the Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), New Delhi. He obtained his Ph.D., M.Phil. and M.A. in Economics from the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi at the Centre for International Trade and Development (CITD). As a Ph.D. scholar he received the WIPO Prize, DAAD funded junior fellowship for research in Germany, and Government of India Travel Award. Previously, he has worked with JNU and ICRIER as senior research staff. Recently, he contributed as a Member of T20 Japan Task Force on Trade, Investment, and Globalisation. His areas of expertise include innovation economics, technology, international trade, and industrial policy. In the context of the SDGs, he has extensively worked on STI; technology facilitation and transfer; industrial development; resource mobilisation and the role of the private sector.

Navroz K. Dubash is a Professor at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), and leads the CPR Initiative on Climate, Energy and Environment. He works on climate change policy and governance, the political economy of energy and air pollution, and the regulatory state in the developing world. Widely published in these areas, Navroz serves on Government of India advisory committees on climate change, energy and air pollution, and on the editorial boards of several international journals. He is currently a Coordinating Lead Author for the national policies and institutions chapter in the upcoming 6th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In 2015, he was conferred the 12th T. N. Khoshoo Memorial Award for his work on climate change policy.

TALK BY DR DIPESH CHAKRABARTY
CLIMATE RESEARCH

Watch the recording (above) of a talk on 1 March, 2016, by prominent historian, Dr Dipesh Chakrabarty discussing the emergence of the “Anthropocene” (an epoch when human activities have a significant effect on nature), the implications for how we think about climate change, and the blurring of the boundaries between natural and social sciences.

Dr Chakrabarty is the Lawrence A. Kimpton Distinguished Service Professor in History, South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. He is currently working on two books, provisionally entitled The Climate of History (Chicago) and History and the Time of the Present (Duke).

In the seventh instalment of a monthly op-ed series in the Hindustan Times entitled ‘Clearing the Air,’ Professor Navroz K Dubash outlines five important messages from his recently-released edited book, ‘India in a Warming World: Integrating Climate Change and Development.’

Headlines this week warned that much of Mumbai and its suburbs could be under water due to climate change-related sea-level rise by 2050. Across India, 36 million people — equivalent to the population of Telangana — currently live below the elevation of an annual average flood in 2050.

This is the latest in a string of dire predictions. An ICIMOD assessment of the Hindu Kush suggests a 90% decline in glaciers through this century could place 86 million people in river basins at risk of food and water insecurity, and affect 10 times that number indirectly. Not all studies are projections. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change finds that warming already experienced between 1981 and 2009 has reduced wheat yields by 5%. Emergent “attribution” science finds that a number of extreme weather events — floods, droughts, and heatwaves — in South Asia are partially attributable to human-induced climate change.

While the exact contours of the future are hard to predict, there is little doubt that climate change carries huge, negative implications for India. While India has historically, and justifiably, focused on our immediate development concerns — eradicating poverty, providing jobs and livelihoods, enhancing access to energy services — it is increasingly clear that climate is salient to development. There is no longer a pathway to development innocent of climate change.

The Indian policy conversation has to shift decisively from whether to address climate change to how to do so, but as part of a larger development challenge. A new collection of essays, India in a Warming World (full disclosure: I edited the volume), brings together scholars, policymakers, and practitioners to explore this question. At least five important messages emerge.

First, to recognise the interplay between climate and development, it is useful to take a sector-by-sector approach, and apply a “multiple-stressors” and “multiple-objectives” framework. Thus, for water, climate change is an additional stressor that can exacerbate existing stressors of urban development, industrial pollution, water-intensive cropping, and land-use change. And the objectives toward which we must manage and harness water are not just climate resilience, but also fair distribution, ecosystem flows, and economic efficiency, among others. This approach helps maintain the balance between development and climate, while accounting for the complexities of sectoral challenges.

Second, this approach can help identify clear areas where there are synergies, and where trade-offs exist, between development and climate objectives. An example of synergies include public transport, which promotes liveable cities and reduces air pollution. Greater efficiency in energy and water use also addresses multiple objectives with no trade-offs. Focusing on adaptation in vulnerable areas such as coastlines also bring large pay-offs. However, an example of a trade-off is the shift to commercial cooking energy such as gas, which brings enormous development gains, but may have climate downsides; in such a case, development imperatives have to be paramount. Fortunately, there are likely far more instances of synergy than trade-offs.

Third, climate change provides an opening, and even an imperative, to look beyond short term fire-fighting to longer term strategic visions of India’s development pathway. For example, the United Nations climate process requires India to produce a “mid-century strategy”. Given that we are locked into some warming, investing in climate adaptation is paramount. But we can also use this process to reflect on the viability of our current development path that has resulted in toxic air and unsustainable waters, quite aside from climate impacts. It also allows us to explore opportunities to remake our electricity sector, and take advantage of recent decline in renewable energy costs to build a competitive low-carbon economy. Climate change provides an opportunity to strategically reflect on both shortfalls and opportunities and set a course correction.

Fourth, these approaches require a high degree of analytical capacity, coordination ability, and strategic intent in climate governance. India will have to do better than thinly staffed climate “cells” in various ministries and departments. Emergent climate institutions need to engage more fully with researchers, develop coordination mechanisms across departmental silos, transcend the separation across national, state and local levels, and create bodies, perhaps akin to a National Security Advisory Board, to chart a strategic course. To understand climate and development in its complexity, make the right trade-offs, and be strategic, India requires improved governance and enhanced institutions.

Finally, climate diplomacy remains important, but with a dual function. Historically, India has focused on ensuring equity in climate outcomes. This remains important, especially as pressures for mitigation action grow with evidence of the scale of climate impacts. But equally, as a deeply vulnerable country, India has to push vigorously for more and more effective, global action on reducing emissions. India should strive to transform global climate politics in response to growing urgency, rather than being content being a relative leader in a class of laggards.

Navroz K Dubash is a Professor at the Centre for Policy Research, and the editor of ‘India in a Warming World: Integrating Climate Change and Development.’ This is the seventh article in a monthly op-ed series in the Hindustan Times entitled ‘Clearing the Air.’ The original article, which was posted on November 2, 2019, can be found here.

Read more in the Clearing the Air series:

India needs environmental governance
Green industrial policy is a timely idea for India to explore
Our clean air plan is a missed chance
Can India grow now and clean up later? No, it can’t
How to avoid the middle income trap
Existentialism with Equity: The Climate Dilemma

Watch the full video (above) of the webinar on ‘Closing the Enforcement Gap: A Practice Guide for Environment Justice Paralegals’ moderated by Manju Menon from CPR.

The webinar is a guide to the lessons from four years of work done by paralegals in India to assist affected communities to seek legal and administrative remedies in over 150 cases of non-compliance, as well as learnings from colleagues working on these issues in Africa and Asia. The guide includes vivid case stories and pictures of paralegals in action. The full guide can be accessed here.

The webinar discusses the Practice Guide for Environmental Justice Paralegals and elaborates on how paralegals and communities can use the law to address environmental harms.

Click here to access the note on the methodology and here for the same note in Hindi.

Find the translation of the paralegal practice guide in Hindi, Gujarati, Odiya, Kannada, Indonesian Bahasa, and French.

The Mormugao Port is located at Vasco bay in the Mormugao taluka of Goa at the point where the Zuari river meets the Arabian Sea. This region is home to thousands of fisherfolk from the Karvi community who live along the beaches of Mormugao, Salcete and Tiswadi talukas. It is a natural harbour that provides safe haven for ships and fishing vessels during storms, like it did in 2017 when cyclone Okchi hit this coast. The lives and livelihood of these fisherfolk are intrinsically linked to the activities of Mormugao port as they have had to share their customary livelihood areas – the sea and the beaches – with the port. This has resulted in them competing for space for their daily activities like fish landing, boat parking, net mending, and even housing with the port and its infrastructure development on the landward side, and competing with larger shipping vessels for navigation space and access to certain parts of Vasco bay.

The Mormugao Port was commissioned by the Portuguese in 1885 and over many years developed 5 berths for import and export of oil, cashews, wine, iron ore, etc. Iron ore export gained importance after 1948. After liberation in 1961, the Mormugao Port was declared a Major Port by the Government of India in 1965. It was after this that major infrastructure developments began at the port and by 1994, the port had built its 11th Berth and soon after this coal handling began in earnest. Mormugao Port Trust (MPT) is now one of India’s oldest and largest ports with 11 berths of which 6 are leased out to third parties. The port handles cargo like coal, iron ore, woodchips, steel coils, gypsum, bauxite, ammonia, other dry bulk, petroleum, oil and lubricants (POL), and also services cruise ships.

In March 2017, it came to light that the MPT was in the process of seeking environment clearance (EC) for three proposals to expand and modernise its existing facilities. Residents of Vasco and the fishing villages around the site realised this when notices for public hearing under the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification of 2006 were issued in local newspapers. Of these, two proposals were for coal handling capacity enhancement and modernisation of existing Berth 5a 6a and Berths 8 & 9 and barge berths respectively. This was despite long standing resistance from the people of Vasco da Gama in Mormugao taluka and other citizens of Goa against coal handling and resultant pollution.

It was in this backdrop, that a community led groundtruthing study was initiated in April 2018 by Old Cross Fishing Canoe Owners Co-op Society Ltd, Baina Ramponkar, Fishing Canoe Owners Society, Destierro Fisherman Association – Vasco, Goenchea Raponkarancho Ekvott (GRE) and the Centre for Policy Research (CPR)-Namati Environmental Justice Program with support from concerned citizens of Vasco and the Federation of Rainbow Warriors. Impacts that community members were facing due to coal handling at MPT were identified through multiple discussions and the main issues that emerged were:

Increased coal dust in the homes and other areas near the port as a result of open coal handling at the berths, open transportation by trucks and wagons.
Respiratory issues like asthma attacks especially in children and the elderly.
Water pollution from spillage during transport of coal through waterways in barges and washing of barges. Runoff from the stockyard into Vasco bay was also cited, where the fisherfolk of Kharewado, Baina and Desteiro primarily go fishing on a daily basis.
Threat of eviction of fisherfolk living along the beaches abutting MPT in Kharewado, Baina and Desteiro areas for expansion of port activities and road connectivity.
This grountruthing study is also an attempt by the affected community members to understand the environmental impacts of these berths, link them to the regulatory requirements and push for the compliance of the same.

The findings of the study can be accessed here.

Janabhivyakti, the Centre for Policy Research-Namati Environmental Justice Program and Oxfam India have jointly conducted a groundtruthing study of environmental violations in the Bodai-Daldali bauxite mine located in the Kabirdham district of Chhattisgarh. A groundtruthing study is the process of comparing the facts as mentioned in official documents with the impacts being reported by affected communities.

The methodology included undertaking group discussions with the affected communities. During the group discussions, impacts which the communities were facing were discussed first. This was followed by brief discussions on the various laws and institutions which are available for dealing with impacts arising out of environmental violations.

Based on that, the major observations of this study were:

Prevalence of dust pollution due to transportation of uncovered trucks, blasting and drilling.
Poor status of land reclamation and afforestation of reclaimed land.
Non-compliance with health and safety of the workers engaged in mining operations.
Incomplete and inadequate process of Rehabilitation and Resettlement.
These were also confirmed by government reports and independent research studies. These reports and studies date back to the year 2007, and some of the impacts have been in existence since the beginning of the mining operations, and have been recorded in the aforementioned reports.

The full groundtruthing report can be accessed here.

Coastal commons for private tourism and entertainment?
PART 1 OF A SERIES ON ‘COASTAL REGULATION’ BY THE CPR-NAMATI ENVIRONMENT JUSTICE PROGRAM
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE COASTAL GOVERNANCE RIGHTS

More projects on the coast will put public beach space and fishing and coastal communities at risk

In the last week there have been two news reports on an impending new Marine and Coastal Regulation Zone (MCRZ) Notification replacing the existing Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification, 2011. As per the news reports, two big changes in the offing are to open the ecologically sensitive areas of the coast for tourism projects, and lift the ban on reclamation for commercial and entertainment purposes. These changes will have a significant negative impact on millions of locals whose lives are dependent on the coast and its ecological health. They are already paying the price for current illegal violations, captured in narratives below, but the proposed changes will completely sideline their interests.

Background of the CRZ Notification, 2011

CRZ Notification, 2011 governs development on the 7500 km long coastline of India. It notifies 500 metres of land from the sea all along the coast as CRZ, and prescribes a different set of regulations for rural, urban, ecologically sensitive and water areas that are demarcated within this zone. CRZ Notification, 2011, in its original form, allowed tourism in urban and rural areas but not in ecologically sensitive areas of the CRZ. It also put in safeguards such as:

not allowing tourism related structures to be constructed within the first 200 metres of the high tide line (HTL) – this zone is termed as No Development Zone (NDZ) in view of coastal vulnerability;
a 20 metres wide gap between two structures to allow public access to the beach;
and no withdrawal of groundwater within the first 200 metres of the HTL to avoid saltwater intrusion into the groundwater aquifers.
However, these safeguards were removed for urban areas through an amendment to the Notification in February, 2015.

Reclamation for commercial and entertainment purposes is a prohibited activity under the CRZ Notification, 2011. But in 2015, the Ministry of Environment Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) allowed reclamation of sea for construction of roads, memorials and monuments.

Voices from the ground

As per the latest news reports, the MoEFCC is looking to lift the ban on reclamation completely and permit tourism in coastal areas that are ecologically sensitive. Opening up areas for additional activities makes sense only when the existing activities and demands are being handled well. The CPR Namati Environmental Justice Program has recorded several cases of CRZ violations that are related to illegal reclamation and tourism activities. These violations pose significant impacts on people living around such activities. These cases, as described by CPR-Namati’s enviro-legal coordinators below, illustrate how millions of fisherfolk, artisanal salt producers and bivalve collectors are forced to alter their lives in order to make room for ‘new development opportunities’. Reduced income, longer distances to access their sites of work and water sources, or even shifting their sites of work are examples of alterations they are pushed to make. They also find themselves at the receiving end of the negative environmental impacts that are a fallout of the operations of these projects. Thus, their lives and livelihoods, which are closely tied to the ecological health of the coast and unrestricted access to common spaces such as beaches, creeks and estuaries are put to risk with policies that undermine their existence and need for coastal space. The stories below highlight the impacts of tourism projects and reclamation activities for commercial purposes on the coast and the locals.

In the first story Vinod Patgar talks about the inconveniences faced by the coastal communities of Uttara Kannada, Karnataka because of some inherent biases in the CRZ Notification that have given a push to tourism and development.

Government response to coastal violations

These three stories show how commercial activities and tourism projects sidestep the traditional livelihoods of coastal people by committing gross violations of the Notification. These violations go unchecked because the violators have political connections, enjoy favours from government agencies or are seen as symbols of development. Enforcement mechanisms of CRZ law seem to be unable to deter violations on the coast.

CPR-Namati’s enviro-legal coordinators have spent two years bringing well drafted complaints to the notice of district level coastal committees and coastal zone management authorities at the state level, and seeking remedial actions in close to 20 cases. They meticulously build evidence of violations and produce it with these complaints, and yet have to write to these institutions incessantly, and visit their offices at least 3-4 times before they even get an official recognition of the problems faced by the communities. Even after obtaining an official acknowledgment of the problems and their links with the CRZ violations, remedies are not easy to come by.

All the above stories underline the challenges faced in extracting enforcement and remedies from institutions – more stories on impacts of CRZ violations and efforts of the communities at mitigating those can be found in the recent report on effectiveness of environmental laws. If this is the current situation, opening the coasts for more such activities will mean bigger costs and risks for the fishing and coastal communities.

This piece can also be accessed in हिंदी

The other pieces in this series can be accessed below:

Is it the end of participatory coastal planning?
States ask Review Committee to loosen up the Coastal Regulation
Crucial aspects of proposed Marine Coastal Regulatory Zone Notification revealed
In conversation with Dr Shailesh Nayak – the man who led the review of coastal regulation
The proposed Marine Coastal Regulation Zone (MCRZ) Notification
A tale of two reviews: How two governments amended a coastal land use law
The Supreme Court’s guiding principles for coastal regulation
Coastal Regulation Zone Disputes before the National Green Tribunal
CRZ drives a wedge between communities in Mumbai

India’s long coastline of close to 8000 kilometres covers nine states and five union territories. Not only is it home to wetlands, several species of fish, reptiles, crustaceans, corals, mangroves, it also supports the livelihood of around 3300 fishing villages.

An important law that seeks to regulate and manage this diverse stretch, is the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification. A Notification was first issued in 1991, under the Environmental Protection Act (EPA), 1986 that regards 500 metres from the High Tide Line (HTL) all along the coast as CRZ. Certain changes were made to the Notification of 1991 and a new Notification was issued in 2011. The amended law of 2011 continues to enable the concerned Coastal Zone Management Authorities (CZMAs), District Level Coastal Committees (DLCCs), and the Ministry of Environment Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) to protect and conserve these areas.

A breach of this notification can be challenged before the National Green Tribunal (NGT), both as an appeal as well as seeking remedies on the grounds of it being a substantial question related to the environment. Since its establishment in 2010, the NGT is the primary judicial body for all adjudication under the CRZ.

Since 2012, the principal and zonal benches of the NGT have heard numerous cases concerning violations of the CRZ law. The CPR-Namati Program has attempted to identify the more common disputes, limiting it to three sets of disputes. These have been elaborated upon and substantiated with the help of seven judgments from the NGT, below:

Determining the regulatory authority for certain activities in the CRZ area

One set of disputes which were argued before the NGT is determining whether the State Coastal Zonal Management Authority (SCZMA) is the appropriate regulatory authority for the coastal zones.

The case which best highlights the NGT’s position in this regard is that of Alexio Arnolfo Pereira v. State of Goa (2014 SCC OnLine NGT 6655). In 2013, the State of Goa passed the ‘Tourism Policy for construction of temporary seasonal structures, beach shacks, huts and others 2013-2016’, which is commonly known as the ‘Shack Policy’. This policy was challenged by Alexio Arnolfo Pereira, a resident of Goa, as being contrary to the provisions of the CRZ Notification of 2011. Pereira stated:

The CRZ Notification empowers the Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority (GCZMA) to regulate activities in the CRZ areas.
He also argued that the Tourism Department of Goa, under the guise of the Shack Policy, was usurping the regulatory powers of the Goa Coastal Zonal Management Authority (GCZMA) by granting permission for shacks/huts on the beaches for tourism purposes.
Thus, the questions before the NGT were: i) whether the temporary seasonal structures in the CRZ areas would require the GCZMA’s permission or not, and ii) whether the current practice for granting No Objection Certificates was as per the CRZ Notification, 2011 or not? Though the NGT decided that the Shack Policy was correct since it did necessitate the organisers of the temporary structures to take necessary permissions from the GCZMA, there were still innumerable shacks in the area which had been set up without any necessary permissions.

Similarly in Kamburam Dharma Paripalana Araya Samajam vs. Kozhikode Corporation and Others ( (22.09.2015 – NGT) : MANU/GT/0160/2015)), the petitioners, a society representing traditional fisher folk brought forth a complaint against certain indiscriminate and illegal constructions on the Kamburam beach. The contention was that since the total investment in the project was in excess of Rs. 5 crores, the project would thus need clearance not only from the Kerala Coastal Zonal Management Authority (KCZMA) but also from the MoEFCC. This argument was advanced on the basis of the 1991 Notification. The 2011 Notification however had no such provision, and as per the 2011 Notification, permission of the MoEFCC would only be required in cases where the built up area of the project exceeded 20,000 square metres. Thus, the petition was dismissed since the constructions had been done only after taking the necessary permissions from the appropriate authority, i.e., the KCZMA.

Another such situation arose when, in the case of Libertina Fernandes v. Goa Coastal Zonal Management Authority (2015 SCC OnLine NGT 61), the appellant’s main contention was that the GCZMA had no authority to direct the demolition of a property, which was admittedly constructed in the CRZ. The contention in the case was that the Village Panchayat was the competent authority to direct demolition of the property by following the course of action contemplated under the Goa Panchayat Raj Act, 1994. The permissions for the property had been taken in the years 1986-1987 under the Goa, Daman and Diu Village Panchayat (Regulation of Building) Rules, 1971. These rules allowed the Village Panchayat to issue regulations only in case of a non-permanent building, the cost of which did not exceed Rs. 20,000. The disputed building, however, was made of steel and concrete and the cost ran into crores. The NGT was of the opinion that the 1971 Act and the CRZ Notification, 2011 are not necessarily conflicting legislations and can operate simultaneously. This is because the object and purpose of the Acts were quite different. Since the construction was in the CRZ area, permission of the GCZMA was required under the law. The absence of any such permission was seen a blatant violation of the CRZ law and the property was ordered to be demolished.

Developmental Activities vs. Livelihoods Rights of Coastal Communities

The second kind of dispute, which emerged from the thicket of NGT decisions, pertained to a clash between historical livelihood use of coastal areas by communities and developmental activities on the coast.

For instance, in Ramdas Janardan Koli and Others v. Secretary, MoEFCC and Others ((27.02.2015 –NGT):MANU/GT/0056/2015)), the traditional fishermen from villages situated in the Uran and Panvel Talukas of Raigad district sought compensation from the City & Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra Ltd (CIDCO), Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) and Oil and Natural Gas Company (ONGC). Their claim was that the widening and deepening of the sea for an additional fourth berth in the JNPT area was impairing the regular tidal water exchanges and in turn affecting the egress and ingress of the fishermen’s traditional boats to the sea through a creek near the JNPT. Further, land reclamation in the area had led to removal of mangroves and this large scale destruction of mangroves had reduced the breeding of fish in the area. Both of these affected their traditional right to catch fish and on this basis the fisher folk claimed compensation. The NGT came to the conclusion that the JNPT, CIDCO and ONGC were responsible for damaging the environment and affecting the livelihood of the fishermen in that area, and ordered the organisations to pay an amount of Rs. 95,19,20,000 to 1630 families.

In Wilfred J. v. MoEFCC ((02.09.2016 – NGT) : MANU/GT/0113/2016)), the MoEFCC issued an Environmental Clearance (EC) and CRZ clearance for the Vizhinjam International Deepwater Multipurpose Seaport on 3 January 2014. This clearance order was challenged in four different petitions. The petitioners ranged from people concerned about the environment, and social workers to local fishing communities and individual fisher folk. The petitions were clubbed and heard collectively. The proposed site for the seaport was south of the Vizhinjam fishing harbour. The coastal and offshore waters of the area was used by the fishermen in the district. These fishermen had been using the existing harbour to venture out safely into the sea during the rough monsoon months for almost 40 years. The establishment of the port thus threatened the basis of their livelihood. With respect to the the CRZ clearance, the main contention of the appellants was that the site where the port was to come up was ‘an area of outstanding natural beauty’ as per the Kerala Coastal Zonal Management Plan of 1995, and was thus classified as CRZ-I (ecologically sensitive areas and other geomorphological features which are important to maintain the integrity of the coasts are classified as CRZ-I) under the 1991 Notification. The NGT however recognised that the 2011 Notification had superseded the 1991 Notification. They thus examined the 2011 Notification, and observed that the categories of classification as referred to by the appellants had been specifically excluded from the 2011 Notification. The appeal was thus dismissed. The NGT however recognised the importance of strict compliance to the EC and CRZ Clearances and an expert committee was set up to guarantee that the project proponents ensure compliance.

The nature and extent of permissible activities within the No Development Zone

The scheme of the CRZ Notification is such that it demarcates the area upto 500 metres from the coast into four distinct zones. Of these, in CRZ III (areas which have not been substantially built up, are relatively undisturbed and do not fall under CRZ-I or II, are earmarked as CRZ-III), the area of 200 metres from the High Tide Line on the landward side is the No Development Zone (NDZ) (Clause 8 (III) (A) of the CRZ Notification of 2011). The third set of disputes is related to activities in the NDZ where only repairs and reconstructions of existing structures are usually permitted. Further, it is stated that the repairs and reconstructions must not exceed the authorised floor space index, plinth area and density (Clause 8 (III) (A) (ii) of the CRZ Notification of 2011). For traditional coastal communities, however, the construction and reconstruction of dwelling units is permitted between 100 and 200 metres of the NDZ (Clause 8 (III) (A)(ii) of the CRZ Notification of 2011).

In the cases of Kashiram Jairam Setye v. Anil Hoble (2015 SCC OnLine NGT 117) and Marie Christine Perdriau v. Goa Coastal Zonal Management Authority and Others (2015 SCC OnLine NGT 23), the legality of certain structures constructed within the NDZ were challenged before the NGT. In Kashiram’s case, the initial permission granted for the purposes of the re-roofing and re-tiling was instead used to carry out expansions and set up a bar and restaurant. The bar and restaurant were in turn polluting a nearby river by way of sewage discharge. In Marie Christine’s case, the GCZMA had granted permissions to repair and renovate a particular structure in the NDZ area. The case of the applicants was that the structure did not exist before 1991 and that the permission was being misused by one of the respondents to set up a resort. In both these cases, the NGT was of the opinion that the constructions were in violation of the CRZ Notification since they had been set up for commercial purposes, which is not permissible in the NDZ.

Conclusion

The three kinds of disputes point out that:

The NGT has recognised that the CRZ Notification empowers the SCZMAs to regulate the nature and extent of permissible activities within the CRZ. To that effect, it has ensured that the authority bestowed upon the SCZMAs is not replaced by any other authority.
While the NGT has not restricted or reversed large-scale land use change within the CRZ, it has emphasised that the projects must adhere strictly to compliance norms and not affect the livelihood rights of coastal communities.
The NGT has also made it clear that heavy penalties can stem from non-compliance of conditions and safeguards specified in the clearance conditions.
With respect to permissible construction activities within the NDZ of the CRZ III, the NGT has not allowed constructions for commercial purposes.
The previous pieces in this series can be accessed below:

Coastal commons for private tourism and entertainment?
Is it the end of participatory coastal planning?
States ask Review Committee to loosen up the Coastal Regulation
Crucial aspects of proposed Marine Coastal Regulatory Zone Notification revealed
In conversation with Dr Shailesh Nayak – the man who led the review of coastal regulation
The proposed Marine Coastal Regulation Zone (MCRZ) Notification
A tale of two reviews: How two governments amended a coastal land use law
The Supreme Court’s guiding principles for coastal regulation
CRZ drives a wedge between communities in Mumbai
To learn more about the National Green Tribunal, read this piece by Shibani Ghosh, here.

Collapse of the Indo-Pak NSA level talks
CPR FACULTY ANALYSE
INDIA-PAKISTAN POLITICS SOUTH ASIA

In light of the collapse of the Indo-Pak NSA level talks, CPR faculty provide a rounded analysis:

In To The Point with Karan Thapar, Srinath Raghavan talks about how the government’s approach to Hurriyat with respect to talks with Pakistan has not been properly thought through.
G Parthasarathy speaks on India Today that Indo-Pak talks must be bilateral with no place for a third party.
In Nothing But The Truth, Shyam Saran provides a detailed analysis of the collapse of the Indo-Pak NSA level talks.
Sanjaya Baru provides a historical perspective to Indo-Pak talks with Barkha Dutt on NDTV.