NGOs can't stall every project citing ecological concern: Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: Irked by obscure NGOs frequently conjuring environmental risks to seek stalling of development projects, Supreme Court on Tuesday came down heavily on such malpractices while apprehending the possibility of these being funded either by losing bidders or by those from outside to impede India's growth.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh dismissed an appeal by NGO 'Kahar Samaj Panch Committee' challenging the National Green Tribunal's decision permitting installation of 'floating solar power' projects at Jayakwadi Dam, declared as a bird sanctuary, by the

Tehri Hydro Development Corporation

(THDC).
Even an environment-friendly solar power project was being questioned in the guise saving the environment, the bench said.
THDC, a central PSU, had issued a tender for setting up a floating solar power project at Jayakwadi Dam, which is an earthen dam located on Godavari river in Paithan taluka of Sambhaji Nagar district in Maharashtra. The NGO had moved the NGT claiming that the floating solar power project would be detrimental to the area's biodiversity and create problems for birds as the area had been declared an eco-sensitive zone by the ministry of environment, forest and climate change.

"No sooner was the tender floated, the NGO approached NGT saying it would harm the bird sanctuary and pollute its water," the Justice Kant-led bench said. It added that the NGT, after a scrutiny of the replies submitted by the ministry, found that under the Union govt's policy decisions, solar power projects were to be actively promoted.
The NGO could not give a proper response to NGT's repeated query - Whether there existed a law that barred setting up of a floating solar power project in an eco-sensitive zone? The NGT rejected the petition and said the NGO was even unable to specify whether the floating solar power project fell within the eco-sensitive zone of Jayakwadi bird sanctuary.
The bench said SC was sensitive to genuine environmental concerns expressed by well-meaning NGOs, but these days it had become a practice with rivals of project proponents to set up NGOs and challenge projects on the ground that it would cause irreparable harm to the environment.