NGO files case against KMC on waterbodies

KOLKATA: An NGO on Friday dragged the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and the state to court over the decision to concretise the banks along waterbodies in and around the city.
Environmentalist and secretary of city-based NGO Friends of Wetlands and Wildlife, Mukuta Mukherji, filed a PIL against the state and the civic body’s combined move to concretise the banks of the ponds despite public concern that it would spoil the bio diversity of the waterbodies.
Advocate Joymalya Bagchi represented Mukherjee before the High Court Green Bench, seeking an embargo on the concretisation plan.
"We have also sought the construction of grilled boundary instead of the brick walls to allow the creatures move around freely," said the petitioner. The PIL also sought a ban on bright lighting along the waterbodies as it affects the biological clock of the animals and amphibians in these ponds.
"The zone where the land meets water — the eco-tone zone, provides habitation to the amphibians, fishes, flora and also purifies the poisonous substances along the banks. It is important for balancing bio-diversity and for human life," said Mukherji, on the basis of reports on maintenance of waterbodies provided by the Institute of Wetland Management and state fisheries department.
According to environmental experts, the construction of concrete walls along waterbodies — undertaken by the KMC as part of an Asian Development Bank-funded beautification project — went against the ADB guidelines itself.
In its report on Kolkata Environmental Improvement Project (KEIP) related to the rehabilitation of lakes and canals, the ADB specifically mentions that "the permanent solution of bank protection is to create a vegetative boundary, which will consist of some earth filling," said a member of the NGO.
As former head of department of marine science, Calcutta University, Dr. Amalesh Choudhury had earlier suggested, "We can build a brick pathway just three feet away from the bank and stop both land erosion and also maintain biodiversity."