Dinesh Kamath's news item 'Navi Mumbai airport to be inspected by two members of NBWL' that was published in Newsband

Navi Mumbai airport to be inspected by two members of NBWL

By Dinesh Kamath

The Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) has asked two members of the Standing Committee of National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) to visit the Navi Mumbai international airport site and prepare a site inspection report. This is in spite of the fact that this airport had got environmental clearance in November 2010.

Kishore Rithe, president of Satpuda Foundation, and Dr Asad Rahmani, director of the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), are the two members who will conduct avian fauna studies for the City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO), the nodal agency for the airport project. The proposal for wildlife clearance for the airport came owing to the fact that the site falls within ten km of the Karnala bird sanctuary. A Supreme Court ruling has made it mandatory for projects located within ten km of a protected wildlife area to get NBWL approval.

Last year, Debi Goenka of Conservation Action Trust wrote to the MoEF and the Maharashtra forest department pointing out that the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report for the airport had erred in saying that the proposed airport was 12.5 km away from Karnala bird sanctuary. Mr.Goenka said he had conducted a site visit in 2011 with CIDCO officials and used GPS to measure the exact distance which was at least nine km between the proposed airport and Karnala bird sanctuary. The forest department then took up the matter and escalated it.

Mr. Goenka alleged that both CIDCO and the Maharashtra forest department had deliberately concealed the fact that the sanctuary was less than ten km away from the airport site. Also other than mangroves there was additional forest area which would be affected by the project. He said there was a special provision in the EIA Notification, 2006 which says that deliberate concealment and/or submission of false and misleading data which is material to screening and scoping, shall make the application liable for rejection. He said this is a fit case for cancelling the environmental clearance of this project. He also pointed out that Matheran hill station which is designated as an eco sensitive zone and Elephanta Island fall in the vicinity of the proposed airport.

The sanctuary attracts many birds as also migratory duck and geese and bird-aircraft interactions cannot be ruled out, he added.