EPG seeks judicial scrutiny of proposed Rs 104.02-crore Nowgam industrial park

Ziraat Times News Desk

SRINAGAR, AUGUST 18: The Environmental Policy Group (EPG) has called for immediate judicial and statutory scrutiny of the proposed Rs 104.02-crore Plug-and-Play Industrial Park at Nowgam, questioning its conformity with the approved Srinagar Master Plan–2035 and a specific restriction imposed by the State Administrative Council (SAC) to protect a flood-absorption basin.

The proposed industrial park, spread over around 50 acres, envisages industrial plots, roads, utilities, warehouses, factory sheds, worker facilities and other associated infrastructure.

EPG has raised concerns that such intensive development could convert permeable and low-lying land into built-up areas and potentially alter flood-storage, flood-conveyance and drainage functions across the wider Pantha Chowk–Nowgam landscape.

“Flood basins are not vacant land. They are natural public infrastructure, and their storage capacity cannot be treated as surplus land available for urbanisation,” the group said.

According to EPG, the issue is significant because restrictions on development along the Pantha Chowk–Nowgam NH Bypass corridor already form part of the approved statutory planning framework and are not merely a fresh environmental objection.

The Draft Master Plan Srinagar, along with recommendations of the committee constituted for its examination, was placed before the SAC for approval under Section 9 of the J&K Development Act, 1970.

The Master Plan–2035 was approved by the SAC along with the committee’s recommendations through Decision No. 40/5/2019 at its meeting held on February 13, 2019, at Raj Bhavan, Jammu, except for the committee’s recommendation concerning development along the NH Bypass from Pantha Chowk to Nowgam.

EPG said the SAC, while approving the departmental proposal, made a specific modification stating that: “NO DEVELOPMENT/CONSTRUCTION ACTIVITY BE PERMITTED ALONG THE NH BYPASS FROM PANTHA CHOWK TO NOWGAM WHICH FORMS A PART OF FLOOD ABSORPTION BASIN.”

The group said this makes the immediate issue whether the proposed industrial park site falls within the area covered by the SAC restriction and, if so, under what lawful authority development can now be contemplated.

It maintained that the matter cannot be treated merely as a question of obtaining a subsequent hydrological or drainage clearance.

“Statutory land-use status and hydrological function of the site must first be established, followed by a determination of whether development is legally and technically permissible,” EPG said.

Calls for GIS-based verification

EPG has called for the complete project footprint, cadastral boundaries and geographical coordinates to be overlaid on a single GIS platform against the Srinagar Master Plan–2035 zoning and the SAC-protected Pantha Chowk–Nowgam corridor.

It has also sought comparison with September 2014 inundation data, notified or proposed flood-basin areas, Nowgam Jheel, the Jhelum floodplain, natural drainage channels and wetland areas.

The group said such an exercise would help establish whether the proposed industrial park overlaps with land whose flood-storage or drainage functions are protected under the existing planning framework.

EPG has consequently urged that the project undergo judicial and statutory scrutiny before any further development activity is permitted.