the goan I network
PANAJI
The Bombay High Court at Goa has directed the Ministry of Environment and Forests to file its response after the Goa Foundation and the Colva Civic and Consumer Forum filed a petition
challenging the CRZ 2018
notification.
This is the third petition filed against the CRZ with the Rainbow Warriors and Kashinath Shetye already having filed separate petitions against the latest CRZ notification before the Bombay High Court at Goa.
The Goa Foundation has claimed that the latest CRZ notification will unleash unwarranted expansion of activities/projects in ecologically fragile coastal environments thereby violating the aims, objects and provisions of the Environment Protection Act, 1986 and Rules.
“It makes vast and unjustified reductions in No-Development Zones (NDZ) and other provisions installed in the 2011 CRZ notification, which now stands superseded. It removes khazan areas and turtle nesting sites of Goa from the direct purview of the notification without cause. Therefore, it severely dilutes the standards of environmental protection applied earlier over three decades under the 1991 and 2011 regimes and seeks to allow a significant increase in the nature and type, as well as the number of activities that would adversely impact coastal ecosystems,” the petition said.
The High Court has kept the bunch of petitions for hearing on April 22.
