Team Herald
PANJIM: Angered over the ‘extremely slow’ progress on its two-year-old order against illegal structures operating in the No Development Zone (NDZ) of turtle conservation sites, National Green Tribunal (NGT) has warned the State government of doubling the environmental compensation to Rs two crore apart from ordering suspension of salaries of all officers dealing with the case, and other punitive actions.
“Upon consideration of the reports, we find that the action for enforcement of order dated 02.11.2017 is extremely slow and the fact that proceedings had been instituted before the High Court and also the Tribunal in which the Authority had suffered adverse orders would indicate that the actions had been taken mechanically without application of mind,” the principal bench of the NGT said in its order dated November 22, 2019.
“We are also not aware as to whether the compensation of Rs 1 lakh directed to be recovered for each of the violation from the illegal structure owners in terms of direction, have actually been recovered or not,” the bench added.
“We make it quite clear that further delay in execution of the order shall entail the environmental compensation to be doubled to Rs 2 crore apart from suspension of salaries of all the officers dealing with the case and other punitive actions,” NGT said.
The tribunal has directed GCZMA to file a status report, with details of compliance of the order, the amounts recovered in terms of the order and the persons from whom the recoveries were made, at the next hearing scheduled on January 7, 2020.
