Following a plea filed by the fishermen’s community in Maharashtra, Pune-based National Green Tribunal (NGT) has issued notices to the Centre and Maharashtra government seeking clarifications on the environmental clearance and coastal regulation zone (CRZ) clearances given to the Chhatrapati Shivaji memorial off the Mumbai coast before September 30. The community claims that the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) granted the environmental clearances to the project without conducting a public hearing and taking the consent of opposing parties, which they deem mandatory. The need for oceanology and biodiversity studies and surveys before construction of the memorial were also ignored, he said. “This alone will disrupt the marine and aquatic biodiversity and also violate the MoEF's directives,” he said. He also said the waste generated by the large number of tourists to the spot will damage the ecology of the area.

Source: The Hindu September 01, 2016 21:10 UTC