Constructing over parts of a pond, felling trees without permission, damaging storm water drains: Flagging violations during construction of a six-lane highway connecting the Delhi-Noida-Delhi flyway near Maharani Bagh to the KMP Expressway in Haryana, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has asked the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to pay environmental compensation of Rs 45 crore for violations in Gurgaon and Nuh.
In January last year, the Tribunal had constituted a joint committee comprising officials of the Haryana State Pollution Control Board, the Haryana Forest Department, and the Gurgaon District Magistrate to look into the matter.
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In its report submitted to the NGT, the committee noted that the NHAI acquired 0.58 acres of land that forms a pond in the Kiranj village of Nuh, but did not seek permission from the Haryana Pond and Waste Water Management Authority. The Block Development and Panchayat Officer for the area then issued a letter to the NHAI in 2022, “stating that the pond’s natural state has been illegally changed by filling it with soil, violating Haryana Pond and Waste Water Management Authority Act, 2018, and various orders of National Green Tribunal. The acquired pond was filled and the elevated new NH148NA (DND) road has been made on it whose construction was completed in January 2023.”
The judgment of the NGT’s Principal Bench, dated February 13, noted: “It is evident that NHAI has acted wholly illegally by covering even some part of the pond land and raising construction over it. Ordinarily, this illegality on the part of NHAI would have justified to issuing a direction for demolition of such illegal construction, restoration of pond in its original condition… but when we consider huge construction of the entire road and the part whereof which covers the pond, if demolish may affect the entire road, it will be a serious damage to public revenue and public interest…”
The judgment also referred to the joint committee’s findings that 241 trees were cut without permission at Hajipur village in Gurgaon district, and “a large number of trees” standing on private farmers’ land in Nuh’s Kiranj village were also cut “but no compensation has been paid.”The applicant in the case, Prem Mohan Gaur, a resident of Hajipur, had also alleged the NHAI encroached on two drains in the village of Kiranj.
The NGT has referred to this encroachment of stormwater drains, which the joint committee has also recorded, as a “serious violation” that would have “deserved a direction for demolition of the construction raised… but since it will affect the entire project and may cause damage to public revenue and public interest in other way also, we have to balance interest of villagers as also the general public using the road…”
The NGT has estimated the compensation amount as 5% of the project cost of Rs 908 crore, which is Rs 45 crore. The NHAI has been directed to deposit this amount with the Haryana State Pollution Control Board in three months.
If this amount is not deposited by the NHAI, the NGT has directed that the damaged pond and drains are to be restored to their original form and the required steps are to be taken by the Chief Secretary of Haryana.
The judgment noted: “Before parting with the matter, we find it necessary to observe that NHAI is a statutory body… It must follow environmental laws strictly in words and spirit. Statutory body like NHAI is not expected to proceed in execution of their work in flagrant violation of law particularly when it comes to the matter of environment, environmental laws and environmental norms.”