Chennai: National Green Tribunal (NGT) has directed Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL) not to continue with phase-2 work along the Nanmangalam Reserve forest without the approval of the forest department.
The Ministry of Forestry is also directed at taking precautions needed to protect biodiversity while giving permission for CMRL to convert part of forest land in nanmangalam for non-forest purposes.
This problem was turned on by media reports, which accused that allowing CMRL construction without proper research may have a negative impact on biodiversity nanmangalam.
Nanmangalam is a scrub forest with more than 400 species of plants and 120 species of birds including large horned owls (or Indian Eagle Owl).
So, NGT Southern Zone (SZ) in Chennai directed CMRL and other related state institutions to submit a status report on projects and newspapers.
CMRL told the court that the construction of the Metro Rail 2 phase in Chennai consisted of three corridors (corridors 3, 4 and 5).
Alignment of corridor 5 (C-5) connects Madhavaram in the north to Sholinganlatur in the south, past the main residential and commercial area.
This is repeated here that C-5 is limited to the edge of the forest nanmangalam backup and does not pass through the forest.
While the majority of metro rail settings passed along the center of the road, the road between Velakkal and the Maedavakkam Koot Road did not have two wide lanes.
So CMRL has no other choice, but takes alignment along the wall limit of nanmangalam forest compounds.
Most of the forest land cannot be converted for this project.
The forest booked was 320.92 ha.
But CMRL only needed 1,569 ha (which was only 0.48%), according to the official document.
Already studies have been made and the proposal has been delivered with the Ministry of Forestry to change 1,569 ha of land for non-forest purposes, CMRL told NGT.
But this application is returned to CMRL which is looking for clarification and the same thing has not been sent back, the Ministry of Forestry report said.
Only after receiving a revised proposal, the department can receive a call whether to approve CMRL to use forest land or not.
Until CMRL obtained previous forest licenses, they could not continue the project and this could lead to the delay in the overall commissioning of the entire phase-2 of 118 km from the metro facility and produced overruns fees as well.