Yettinahole : NGT, Green tribunal reserves order

Mangalore Today News Network

Mangaluru, May 14, 2019: The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on May 13, Monday reserved its order on Yettinahole project as the parties to the case concluded their arguments.

 

The principal bench of the NGT headed by Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel has asked all the parties to submit a written submission within a week if they wanted to raise any other issue.

The Karnataka government is out to implement Yettinahole project, which aims to draw excess water from Yettinahole and other rivulets in Sakleshpur taluk, Hassan district, to ease drinking water woes in the parched districts in central and south Karnataka - Tumakuru, Chikkaballapur, Kolar and Bengaluru
Rural.

Opposing the project, environmentalist K N Somashekar filed a petition in the NGT alleging that the project work was started by the Karnataka government without getting the required permission from various statutory bodies since it falls in the ecologically sensitive Western Ghats.

On Oct 6, 2017, the NGT had given permission to the state government to go ahead with the project, with some conditions.

However, before the final order was pronounced, NGT’s expert member Ranjan Chatterjee retired from the service. After the new expert member assumed the office, the parties had to place their argument before the bench. The NGT bench expected to give detailed order soon.

During the hearing, Sristhi Agnihotri, an advocate representing the petitioner, argued that if the project came up in the ecologically sensitive Western Ghat, it would lead to man-animal
conflicts.

Ashok Devaraj, the counsel for the Karnataka government contended that the said project was being implemented within the purview of laws to provide drinking water to the parched districts in central Karnataka, including Kolar and Chikkaballapur.