Another petition against the Rs10,000 crore Chennai-Salem Greenfield Highway project was filed today in the Madras High Court, which directed the registry to club it with related matters before the Chief Justice to pass appropriate orders.The PIL was filed by advocate A P Suryaprakasam, seeking constitution of an expert committee with regard to the corridor for the project before going ahead with it.The petitioner sought a direction to the Centre and Tamil Nadu government to appoint experts in environment, ecology, water management and human resources, to study the ecological and environmental damage that he said would be caused due to the land acquisition, before further action was taken.He contended that several trees would be cut and removed and water bodies would be filled up for laying the highway.Also, before undertaking such a massive road project, the government ought to have assessed the ecological and environmental effects, the petitioner said.He submitted there was no discussion with stakeholders before the policy decision was taken and sought a direction to both the central and state governments to conduct an impact study before proceeding further with the acquisition.A division bench of justices K K Sasidharan and R Subramanian, before which the PIL came up, noted that the petitioner has submitted that water bodies in many districts like Kancheepuram, Tiruvannamalai, Tiruvallur and Salem would be totally destroyed on account of the proposed highway.The bench while referring to pending matters, then posted the matter to July 24.The project, which seeks to build a 277-km-long eight-lane highway, has come in for opposition from some quarters on the ground that farm and forest lands would be affected.
