Environment ministry gives clearance to Lavasa project

The Union environment ministry on Wednesday gave environmental clearance (EC) to the controversial Lavasa hill township project near Pune in Maharashtra. The clearance, however, is subject to at least 57 conditions and regular monitoring.

The 2,000-hectare first phase of the Lavasa project, which is expected to cost around Rs3,000 crore, got the clearance after all five preconditions, including credible action by Maharashtra government against Lavasa Corporation Limited (LCL) for violating green laws, were met.

In the absence of fulfilment of this precondition, the ministry had last month denied clearance to the project. But it was finally met when Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) filed a case against the company in a Pune court.

In its order on Wednesday, the ministry granted clearance but subjected it to 47 construction phase and eight operation phase conditions along with two general conditions.

The ministry has stipulated that LCL shall submit its environment-related policy to them within three months and shall not carry out hill cutting, digging, excavation or any other activity involving generation of soil as far as possible.

Other conditions said that there would be a disaster management plan (fire, accidents, landslides, earthquakes etc) and no discharge of any kind of effluents.

They stipulated that at least 5% of the project’s total cost would be kept for Corporate Social Responsibility programme whose implementation would be ensured in a time-bound manner.

The conditions also said a high level verification and monitoring committee would be constituted by the Maharashtra government in consultation with the Union environment ministry which would examine, verify and monitor various stages of the project. This committee would have to periodically submit reports to the Maharashtra government and the environment ministry.

For energy conservation, the order noted that use of glass should be reduced by up to 40% to minimise electricity consumption.
During the operation phase, the environment ministry’s order asked for implementation of rainwater harvesting, use of solar energy for illumination of common areas, streetlighting and gardens, and proper disposal of solid waste and biomedical waste.

“Six monthly monitoring reports shall be submitted to the ministry,” the order added.

In November last year, the environment ministry had slapped a show-cause notice on LCL for allegedly failing to secure necessary environmental clearances before starting work on its over 5,000-hectare project.

Lavasa, which is a project of Hindustan Construction Company (HCC), had then applied for fresh environmental clearance in February 2011.