HC orders HP board to get muck cleared near Govind Sagar lake

Kullu: The Himachal Pradesh high court has directed the pollution control board and state agencies to ensure that offenders themselves remove the dumped muck from near Govind Sagar Lake, its tributaries, and forest areas in Bilaspur district.
In an order, issued on November 13, a bench of acting Chief Justice Tarlok Singh Chauhan and Justice Satyen Vaidya observed in an ongoing case of illegal muck-dumping in Bilaspur district that “offenders cannot be permitted to go scot-free, just because they can pay the compensation cost”.
In the order, the HC stated that inaction on the part of the offenders would be construed as a contempt of court and appropriate action as warranted would entail.
The HC has further stated that the environmental engineer of the HP state pollution control board in a recent affidavit to the court had pointed out that Rs 85,87,500 was imposed as fine on different companies for illegal muck-dumping but there is nothing on record to indicate that the fine has been recovered.
“We fail to understand why the pollution control board and the state authorities have not taken steps to clear the muck — a task which had to be essentially performed by the offenders upon whom environmental compensation was imposed,” the HC observed.
The HC ordered that individual offenders must remove the muck.
“We make it amply clear that in case there are any private parties, which have dumped the muck illegally, then it shall also be the duty of private offenders to remove such muck,” the order stated.
On Bilaspur police registering eight FIRs against five companies for unscientific and illegal muck-dumping near the reservoir of Bhakra Dam and in the forest areas of Bilaspur since 2012 when the four-laning work on Kiratpur-Manali highway had started, the HC stated: “Why did it take the forest department so long to act.”
“A perusal of FIRs indicate that these were registered only on October 21. We really fail to understand why the divisional forest officer (DFO), Bilaspur, took such a long time to get the FIRs lodged,” the HC observed in the order, while directing Bilaspur DFO to file a personal affidavit explaining the circumstances under which the FIRs were lodged late.
Earlier on May 31 this year, the HC had ordered penal action against violators, who had dumped muck in Govind Sagar lake, its tributaries and in the forest areas and then on August 8 had directed the HP government to explain why “they are simply collecting fine and not prosecuting people responsible for illegal muck-dumping”.
The HC order comes after a petition filed by Madan Sharma, general secretary of Bilaspur-based Fourlane Visthapit and Prabahavit Samiti (FVPS), an organisation that has been working for the welfare of the people displaced by the highway projects.
According to the petition, filed last year, illegal muck-dumping is a threat to the very existence of Bhakra Dam reservoir, a national heritage, and should be immediately stopped.