Mundra Port project draws Jairam Ramesh's ire

In a blow to the multi-billion dollar Mundra Port project, the environment ministry has issued a show cause notice to the developers — Gujarat-based Adani Group — asking them why the permissions granted to them earlier should not cancelled.

The ministry has listed a number of serious objections over the construction work at the port. It followed a site inspection by its additional director A Senthil Vel. He visited the site along with the officials of the Gujarat pollution control board and Gujarat ecological commission in the first week of December.

In its six-page notice, a copy of which is with DNA, the ministry has given 15 days to the Adani group to explain the lapses. The Gujarat government’s environment department has also been asked to furnish an explanation for allowing serious violations in the coastal zone.

The Adanis are considered close to Union agriculture and food minister Sharad Pawar, whose party NCP is an ally of the UPA. Only recently, environment minister Jairam Ramesh had delivered a serious blow to the Lavasa project being promoted by the Hindustan Construction Company of Mumbai. The promoter of Lavasa is also a close associate of Pawar.

The site visit report indicated “large-scale reclamation using dredged material was being carried out on the mangrove area behind the west and north port site and destruction of mangrove areas, especially at the northern port side abutting the dredge disposal pipeline”. It went on to say that the creeks systems and the natural flow of seawater were being obstructed by reclamations along the creeks, with destruction of mangroves being observed at several stretches.

The ministry also objected to M/s Mundra Port & SEZ Limited developing an airport located close to the shore. The environment ministry was surprised that it got a clearance letter from the civil aviation department two years ago, prior to environmental clearance under the Environmental Impact Assessment Notification, 2006.

The notice also objected to the building of a ‘Samundra Township’, which was cleared by the Gujarat government in February this year. The township is located in the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) area of the creek and no clearance under the CRZ Notification was obtained for it.

This is the second big blow to the Adani Group in recent months, the first being the raids by Income Tax department.

The ministry had cleared the coastal zone management plan for the project with conditions and modifications on September 27, 1996. In January 2009, the ministry had given CRZ clearance under strict conditions.