Farmers and environmentalists across Tamil Nadu were protesting the proposed 277-km eight lane Chennai-Salem highway, a Rs. 10,000 crore project. Authorities say the green corridor project would uproot around six thousand trees. However, environmentalists claim the loss would be much more, with at least 3 lakh trees being uprooted and hundreds of lakes and water bodies that would be encroached upon.
Let us understand, how land acquisition, National Highways and Environment acts are applied in this Chennai-Salem 8 Lane project with the various sequence of event taken place.
Let us understand few basics on Land acquisition act,2013:
Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 is also called land acquisition act 2013 and was brought to replace Land Acquisition Act of 1894, enacted during British era.
However, the act was mired into controversies mainly because of lack of specific definition of public purpose, thereby, extending even it to the extent of establishment of business-cum-leisure tourism infrastructure centre like villas, golf course, hotels and banquet halls.
The Act specifically lists the purposes for which the appropriate government can expropriate land as (section 2):
- For public private partnership projects which serve a public purpose, provided prior consent of at least 70% of the affected families is obtained.
- For private companies which serve a public purpose, provided prior consent of at least 80% of the affected families is obtained.
- The “public purposes” for which the government can expropriate the land includes defence, infrastructure development, urban and rural development and so on.
Compensation varies with the market rates. In the case of rural area, it is four times the market rate and for an urban area, it is two times. Affected artisans, small traders, fisherman etc. by the land acquisition are given one-time payment even if they do not own any land. There is also provision for rehabilitation and resettlement award which includes employment to one member of an affected family.
The state government gives acquisition notification to public under Section 3A(1) of the National Highways Act of 1956 and said to the court there was no need to obtain prior environmental clearance for the project from the Ministry of Environment and Forests, before issuing preliminary land acquisition notifications .
Environmental Protection act,1986 takes precedence over National Highways Act of 1956
As activist filed petition against government notice for acquisition, The notification issued under Section 3A of the National Highway Act 1956 for acquiring land for the ambitious Chennai-Salem 8 lane National Highway was quashed by a division bench of the Madras High Court.
Further HC said, Govt argument of Environmental Impact Assessment is required to be done only when the road is to be formed is virtually amounting to “putting the cart before the horse”.
Finally Substantial Law takes precedence over procedural Law:
“Protection of environment stands in a higher pedestal when placed on scale with that of the economic interest” This conclusion was based on the reasoning that Environmental Protection Act was a substantive law enacted as per international treat obligations with specific intention of preventing environmental degradation, whereas NH Act was a mere procedural law. “The interpretation that is to be given to a notification issued under Section 3 of the Environmental Protection Act, undoubtedly, should rule supreme, over other procedural laws including the National Highways Act, which provides for procedure for acquiring land to build, maintain or develop a National Highway.we find that the merits in the existing three routes are far superior and higher than the merits in respect of the proposed alignment, more particularly when the Consultant themselves have stated that by improving the existing routes the average travel time can be reduced “
So far, we have discussed in this article,legislative stand of HC on this project, Whether People verdict in 2019 resemble/reflect this or not, need to wait and see in parliament election results 2019!
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Well researched Tamizh !! I wish people potentially impacted actually had a say in such matters.
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