Coastal Regulation Zone: How rules for building along coast have evolved

Why in news?
  • The Supreme Court recently ordered the demolition, within a month, of five apartment complexes in Maradu municipality in Ernakulam, Kerala, for violating Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) norms.
  • The order came on a special leave petition (SLP) filed by the Kerala Coastal Zone Management Authority (KCZMA).
More in news
  • About CRZ rules:
    (1) The basic idea behind is as areas immediately next to the sea are extremely delicate, home to many marine and aquatic life forms, both animals and plants, and are also threatened by climate change, they need to be protected against unregulated development.
    (2) CRZ Rules govern human and industrial activity close to the coastline, in order to protect the fragile ecosystems near the sea.
    (3) The Rules mandated under the Environment Protection Act, 1986, were first framed in 1991.
    (4) They sought to restrict certain kinds of activities, like large constructions, setting up of new industries, storage or disposal of hazardous material, mining, or reclamation and bunding, within a certain distance from the coastline.
    (5) The regulation zone has been defined as the area up to 500 m from the high-tide line.
  • Restrictions from state:
    (1) Despite several amendments, states found the 1991 Rules to be extremely restrictive.
    (2) They complained that if applied strictly, the Rules would not allow simple things like building decent homes for people living close to the coast and carrying out basic developmental works.
  • Evolution of Rules:
    (1) The Centre notified fresh CRZ Rules in 2011, which addressed some concerns. An exemption was made for the construction of the Navi Mumbai airport.
    (2) Projects of the Department of Atomic Energy, which plans to set up nuclear power plants near the coast, were exempted.
    (3) Environment Ministry in 2014 set up a six-member committee under then Earth Sciences Secretary to give suggestions for a new set of CRZ Rules.
    (4) Chennai-based National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management defined a new high-tide line along India’s entire coastline to remove ambiguities.
    (5) The Survey of India defined a hazard line along the coasts to be used mainly for disaster management planning.
    (6) Based on these and other inputs, the Environment Ministry issued fresh CRZ Rules in December 2018, which removed certain restrictions on building.
  • The current situation:
    (1) The January this year, the government notified new CRZ Rules.
    (2) In this, two separate categories have been stipulated.
    (3) In the densely populated rural areas (CRZ-IIIA) with a population density of 2,161 per sq km the no-development zone is now 50 m from the high-tide level, as against the 200 m stipulated earlier.
    Source
    Indian express




Posted by Jawwad Kazi on 14th May 2019
<< Previous Next >>