Cement Energy and Environment

submitted by LCL to the ministry show the company obtained the first permission for construction only in August 2007. A letter by Pune's assistant director of town planning, dated November 2008, has clarified that Lavasa qualified as a new construction project. The investment made by the company as on July 7, 2004, was less than 25 per cent of the cost, a condition for an industrial project to be considered a "new construction project", requiring clearance from the Centre, the letter says. The developer also ignored the provisions of the EIA notification of 2006, which supersedes the previous two notifications. The notification says all townships and area development projects , covering an area of over 50 ha, commenced or upgraded after September 2006, need environmental clearance from the respective state EIA authorities . Since Maharashtra's State Environment Impact Assessment Authority was constituted by MoEF in April 2008, all new projects should have been appraised by the Centre till that time. But the developer chose to apply to the Maharashtra EIA authority in August 2009. This proposal was too late and by then the environment had been damaged, as MoEF notes in its order dated January 17. The damage report The site inspection of MoEF notes that the company has resorted to large scale hill– cutting to extract construction material and for making roads. This has rendered the hills barren. The Pune collector had granted LCL lease to quarry minor minerals like stones. The ministry report says "the haphazard hill cutting is expected to result in landslides, high erosion, and consequent siltation of water bodies." The ministry EAC, too, endorsed these findings in its meeting on February 14 and 15. "The removal of deep-rooted trees and large rocks would lead to landslides in the event of intense rainfall or cloudburst. Any such occurrence may result in total destruction of the buildings and will have potentially grave threats to buildings down slope," read the minutes of the meeting. Lavasa, in its submissions to the ministry, said using locally available construction material was more ecofriendly than transporting it to site. People living in the area disagree. The blasting of hillsides for quarrying stone has spoilt their water sources. "Many springs in the region have dried. We get very little water now," says Leelabai of Mugaon village, one of the 18 villages affected by the project. Planning norms violated Lavasa has also flouted state rules. Its plan does not conform to the procedures in the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act of 1966, which include inviting public objections and obtaining approval from the state government. MoEF's site inspection report notes there is no approved landscape plan, parking and circulation plan or baseline environmental information within and around the site. The city's master plan is essentially a layout plan for 580 ha which was approved by the Pune collector in 2006. This was revised by LCL after it was appointed Special Planning Authority (SPA) by the state government in June 2008. This bestowed LCL powers to sanction its own plans. Once the developer acquired the powers of a planning authority, it modified the layout plans. The hill station regulations do not allow construction on steep slopes. This made LCL shift most of the development in the valley. The original hill station policy permits only two storey buildings; Lavasa structures have six storeys. This was achieved by transferring the floor space index (FSI) of the buildings that would have come up on the slopes to the buildings in the valley. "By interpreting the global (floating) FSI to their benefit, they have almost doubled the floor space in 80 per cent residential area," says an official in the town planning directorate of Pune. Another major planning violation is that the buildings are almost touching the water body; the state government had permitted LCL to construct at a distance of 50m from the reservoir which was reduced to 30m and then 15m. At site , the concrete pavement almost touches the reservoir. The developer allegedly reclaimed land from the reservoir bank. All this may have a negative impact on the flora and fauna of the water body, says MoEF's site report. The Maharashtra Krishna Valley Development Corporation, the water resource department of the state, had leased 141.15 ha to LCL to build checkdams. LCL used a portion of the leased land which was above the submergence zone to construct commercial and residential buildings. Water at Pune's cost The Warasgaon reservoir is integral to Lavasa's landscape and its water needs. In an 42 \