By IANS,
Noida : A two-member official team which came to investigate complaints against mall developers overdrawing ground water in sector 18 here left without conducting any probe, an activist has alleged.
The two-member team of the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) arrived in Noida to inspect the dewatering by mall developers but retreated swiftly from the spot as they were asked on the status of complaints raised on the issue.
“We are meeting Water Resources Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal shortly. We will apprise him about how his officials returned back and the authority’s men were hand-in-glove with the developers,” social activist Dushyant Nagar said.
“The commercial developers are not only overdrawing ground water for their construction purposes but are directly threatening the survival of future civilizations, as early as just five years from now. Already the water level of sector 18 and nearby areas has fallen down drastically,” he said.
Environment (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Authority (EPCA) chairman Bhure Lal, taking note of the complaints by some environmentalists and reports published in media, had in September 2010 directed the CGWB, the Uttar Pradesh Ground Water Board and the state pollution control board to look into the issue and act against the erring builders.
An inspection of the under-construction commercial structures was subsequently conducted by a nodal officer of the CGWB in September 2011 but had claimed in his report that the developers were not dewatering but were discharging the rain water accumulated in their sites.
Provoked over this, the ecologists complained again to the EPCA chairman who convened a fresh meeting of the senior officials of all the concerned state and central ground water and pollution authorities in February this year.
Dewatering of earth amounts to directly violating the Environment Protection Act.