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APIIC’s Work On Lake Bank Illegal
Posted by Pradeep Sadanapalli | June 26, 2008 | 1,001 views
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VANISHING LAKE: A board shows the work taken up by the APIIC ignoring the buffer zone around the Manikonda lake
Several civil society groups on Wednesday held protests near the Medikunta lake in Manikonda to stop Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC) from restarting earth-levelling works on the lake bank to widen a road.
The lake was handed over to Wipro, which has its main office right next to the water body, by Huda in 2007.
Three civil society organisations, which came under the umbrella of ‘Forum to Save Lakes’, also held a public meeting to protest encroachment of the water body. The levelling works began on June 24 by APIIC without consulting Huda. The civil society activists said they would go to court to stop earth-levelling works. The Forum has also put out a phone number (9849493009) for people to report encroachment of lakes and also an e-response mechanism at (savelakeshyd@gmail.com).
“The levelling work has started without any prior notice. APIIC has bulldozed the lake bank attempting to fill it. A board has also been placed outside the cordoned area saying ‘Road work in progress’,” Umesh Varma, a member of the Forum to Save Lakes, told ‘TOI’. The Forum activists pointed out that APIIC and Wipro had not maintained the buffer zone of 30 metres around the lake. An IT park-cumhotel being built by a construction company too has failed to follow the buffer zone norm.
Though there is a clear encroachment of the lake bank, the Forum members said they would take to legal recourse only if negotiations with the parties concerned do not take place.
The civil society groups plan to lodge a complaint with the local tahsildar to put an immediate end to the earth-levelling works. “Before any kind of construction activity starts near any lake, they should publicise it so that the public can respond to it. We will try to bring this system in the state by holding awareness meetings,” another activist Jasvin Jairath said.
The activists said if the construction activities do not stop there was provision to take legal action against both APIIC and Wipro.
SOURCES:
Times Of India
Topics: Govt Failures |
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