Kashmir Impulse Desk
Srinagar, Aug 18
The Environmental Policy Group (EPG) on Tuesday called for judicial and statutory scrutiny of a proposed Rs 104.02 crore industrial park at Nowgam, saying the project could conflict with Srinagar’s approved Master Plan-2035 and a restriction intended to protect a flood-absorption basin.
The proposed Plug-and-Play Industrial Park, spread over about 50 acres, would include industrial plots, roads, utilities, warehouses, factory sheds, worker facilities and related infrastructure, the group said.
EPG said such development could turn permeable and low-lying land into built-up areas and affect flood storage, flood conveyance and drainage across the Pantha Chowk-Nowgam landscape.
“Flood basins are not vacant land. They are natural public infrastructure,” the group said, arguing that their storage capacity should not be treated as surplus land available for urbanisation.
The group said the issue was not a new environmental objection but concerned a restriction incorporated into the approved statutory planning framework.
The Draft Master Plan Srinagar and recommendations of a committee examining it were placed before the State Administrative Council for approval under Section 9 of the J&K Development Act, 1970.
The Master Plan-2035 was approved by the SAC through decision No. 40/5/2019 at its Feb. 13, 2019 meeting at Raj Bhavan in Jammu, along with the committee’s recommendations, except for the recommendation concerning development along the Pantha Chowk-Nowgam National Highway Bypass.
EPG said the SAC approved the departmental proposal with a specific modification stating that no development or construction activity should be permitted along the bypass from Pantha Chowk to Nowgam because the corridor formed part of a flood-absorption basin.
The group said the immediate issue was therefore whether the proposed industrial park falls within the area covered by that restriction and, if so, under what legal authority development could proceed.
It said the matter could not be resolved simply through a later hydrological or drainage clearance.
The statutory land-use status and hydrological function of the site should first be established, followed by an assessment of whether development was legally and technically permissible, EPG said.
It called for the project footprint, cadastral boundaries and coordinates to be mapped on a single GIS platform against Master Plan-2035 zoning, the SAC-protected Pantha Chowk-Nowgam corridor, September 2014 inundation data, notified or proposed flood-basin areas, Nowgam Jheel, the Jhelum floodplain, natural drainage channels and wetlands.
EPG also called for an independent hydrological and hydraulic assessment covering historical inundation, existing flood-storage capacity, natural overland flow paths, the relationship with Nowgam Jheel and adjoining wetlands, links to the Jhelum and flood-spill system, drainage channels, runoff before and after development and any loss of flood-storage capacity.
The assessment should also consider obstruction or diversion of flood flows, cumulative impacts of surrounding development and extreme rainfall and climate-change scenarios, it said.
EPG said the guiding principle should be “No Net Loss of Flood Storage” and that development should not proceed if it reduced flood-storage or flood-conveyance capacity.
Where development is legally permissible, compensatory storage should be demonstrated through hydraulic equivalence rather than simply by providing an equivalent area, it said.
The group called for the status quo to be maintained at the site until compliance with Master Plan-2035 and the SAC decision is established.
It also sought disclosure of the legal basis, if any, for proposing development in an area covered by the SAC restriction.
If the site is confirmed to lie within the protected flood-absorption area, EPG said the government should consider moving the industrial park to a hydrologically safer location rather than attempting to engineer around the area’s natural flood function.
The group said the Nowgam case should prompt wider measures across the Jhelum basin, including statutory floodplain zoning, protection of flood-storage areas from filling and permanent construction, mandatory flood-risk assessments for major projects and integrated storm-water and drainage planning before urban expansion or major infrastructure projects are approved.
It also called for floodplain, wetland and drainage layers to be incorporated into master plans, zoning regulations, building bylaws and online building-permission systems.
EPG said it had approached then-Governor Satya Pal Malik during the final stage of the Master Plan-2035 process to ensure that the flood-absorption restriction was included.
“Development must follow hydrology – not hydrology be engineered to accommodate development,” the group said, calling for floodplains and wetlands to be treated as essential public infrastructure.
