CAG flags road projects, construction approval in eco zones

Ahmedabad: The comptroller and auditor general (CAG) has found serious violations in road widening projects and land-use approvals near Gujarat's protected forests and wildlife sanctuaries, with govt agencies repeatedly bypassing environmental rules and failing to coordinate with each other. In its audit report covering the period up to March 2024, CAG found that land was diverted for road widening inside wildlife sanctuaries, national parks, eco-sensitive zones, and protected and reserved forests, without getting the mandatory clearance from the Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change (MoEFCC). These are areas where development activity is tightly regulated precisely because of their ecological fragility.The audit also flagged widespread misuse of no objection certificates (NOCs) and non-agricultural (NA) land permissions. In several instances, NOCs for NA activities were granted in direct violation of the eco-sensitive zone (ESZ) notifications governing the concerned protected areas, as well as the state's own policy for regulating development in their periphery. In other cases, district collectors issued NA permissions without first securing the required NOC from the forest department, while some permissions went even further than what the NOC had authorised.CAG identified 35 such cases across 16 villages where NA permission was granted between May 2019 and Nov 2024, without NOC from the competent forest authority. Among them were land parcels within a kilometre of the Blackbuck National Park and Jambughoda Wildlife Sanctuary — zones where construction is subject to strict restrictions.In six more cases, NA permissions were granted for "multipurpose" use, even though the NOCs had been issued only for specific purposes such as eco-tourism, commercial, or residential activity.The report also pointed that in five instances, the chief conservator of forests (wildlife circle), Junagadh, had specifically recommended that NOCs should not be issued, yet the chief wildlife warden overrode those recommendations and approved them anyway.The audit further noted that in Banaskantha, petrol pumps were classified as "regulated" activity in ESZs, when they should arguably be treated as prohibited, given rules on hazardous chemicals. In Gir East, solar plants were allowed as "green technology," even though auditors found they qualified as industrial production activity, a categorisation that would have triggered a stricter review.