Sahara Sundarbans project consultant says it followed all rules

Modular Consultants India (MCI), the agency retained by the Sahara group for the environment impact assessment (EIA) report for the proposed Sahara tourism project in the Sundarbans region of West Bengal, said it had followed all the rules laid down before releasing the document for use by the state government.

Responding to recent criticism directed against the report by certain non-government organisations, MCI managing director K K Dutta pointed out the EIA report was scrutinised by the EIA committee of the government of West Bengal as well as West Bengal State Coastal Zone Management Authority (WBS-CZMA) constituted by the ministry of environment and forests of the government of India.

The EIA committee and WBS-CZMA recommended the proposal for conditional environmental clearance, according to Dutta.

He pointed out that the report was prepared in consultation with environmentalists with knowledge on Sundarbans like Amalesh Chowdhury, former head of the department of marine science of Calcutta University, B K Bardhan Roy, former chief conservator of forests, and and Dr N R Mandal, professor of ocean engineering and naval architecture at Indian Institute of Technology at Kharagpur.

Dutta said the EIA report was available for comments from public and NGOs for a period of 30 days at several locations in the state as directed by West Bengal Pollution Control Board (WBPCB).

Notice inviting comments on the report was also published by WBPCB in local news papers and a public hearing was conducted by WBPCB at the Patherpratima block office, said Dutta.

The consultant said it was only after this assessment that WBPCB granted a "No Objection Certificate" for the project. However, the last could not be verified from WBPCB.

The state government has granted conditional clearance to Sahara mega tourism project in Sundarbans. The conditional approval was granted by the state's department of environment on July 30, 2004. The state government will now send the approval to the central government for clearance, a process that is mandatory as the project cost is in excess of Rs 50 crore.

The project is yet to receive approval from department of forest and Central Ground Water Board, claimed activists opposed to the project.