Indiscrete Bhopal Municipality Strange are the ways of our municipal corporation. It thinks nothing of taking steps that are not only not environment-friendly, they are also illogical, unlikely to survive a judicial review. It seems to lack awareness of the current thinking, in particular, of the National Green Tribunal, a bench of which is located in the city. It has been pretty tough with the municipality in respect of its lackadaisical ways towards conservation of several lakes of the city that have been subject of its utter neglect and apathy. On several occasions the officers of the Corporation were pulled up, even reprimanded by the Tribunal. For the first time in living memory a court, that is, the Tribunal, has had to constitute a peoples monitoring committee to check the progress of the works carried out by the Corporation in accordance with its directions. The latest bit of indiscretion on the part of the Corporation, which is also the custodian of the Upper Lake, was to sweep aside the earlier proposals of the Centre for Environmental Planning & Technology (CEPT) for adoption of measures, inter alia, to block of the drains that flow into the Lake to prevent pollution of its waters. CEPT, it might be reiterated, was engaged to suggest measures for conservation of the water body. Sweeping away the CEPT proposals, the Corporation prepared a new proposal for laying a cycle track, a walking trail and construction of parking lots, food plaza and so on. The fig leaf used for the proposal was that all these would prevent encroachment on the lake shores. It was thus an admission of inability to fulfill its obligations. The proposal involved cutting down thousands of trees that were planted under the Bhoj Wetland Project financed by the Japanese Bank of International Cooperation which provided money reportedly by way of soft loans. The entire proposal involved expenditure of Rs. 13 crore. The Corporation was thus all set to destroy all that was done under the Project by spending a few more crores. It was reported that the municipal body was to provide the infrastructure and the Tourism Corporation was to make use of them. One therefore suspects, given its activities on and around the Lake, the Tourism outfit might be the organisation egging on the municipal body. It does have substantial financial stakes in the water body. One of the newspapers criticised the way Corporation was splurging for conservation of the Lake and practically achieving nothing. The paper drew parallel with the Ganga Action Plan that ate up Rs 1000 crore with hardly any tangible results. Here Rs. 500 crore have already been spent for conservation of the Upper and Lower lakes, again, without any tangible results. Mercifully the Green Tribunal has intervened and all concerned have been asked to respond. Hopefully, at the end of it all the whole ill- conceived project will be scrapped.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 11:28:05 +0000
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