Port Blair, Mar 03: The Ministry of Environment Forest & Climate Change (MoEF&CC) had requested for comments of A & N Administration on ICRZ Notification in June 2018. A & N Administration submitted its detailed comments to the Ministry after taking into account the views of all stakeholders, PRIs and general public.
MoEF & CC referred the comments of the Administration to the committee headed by Dr. Shailesh R Nayak, Director, National Institute of Advance Studies (NIAS), Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru. The meeting of Committee was held on March 1, 2019 at Bengaluru, which was attended by Chief Secretary, A & N Administration and PCCF, CRZ, A & N Forest.
The Chief Secretary put forth following arguments for modification of the draft CRZ Notification.
•Chief Secretary flagged a fundamental issue with regards to various law/ guidelines/ notification applying on the coastal areas of the islands. He referred to Forest Conservation Act, Wildlife Conservation Act and Biosphere & Wildlife Sanctuaries notification which are applicable over and above CRZ notification in the same jurisdiction of coastal areas.
•The application of numerous notifications/ guidelines creates multiple issues of compliance, confusion and fixation of responsibilities in the case of violation. Therefore, Chief Secretary requested that the CRZ notification being one of the most modern legal framework in the coastal areas should be the only law applicable in the coastal areas. The other notifications/ acts/ guidelines should not be applicable in the coastal areas.
•Chief Secretary submitted that Andaman and Nicobar Islands are two technically & geomorphologically different sets of Islands. Therefore, ICRZ Notification should have separate approach towards two groups of Islands.
•He further submitted that undulating terrain and the advance stage of development of Andaman group of Islands should be considered before finalizing the notification. He suggested that in the Andaman group of islands, No Development Zone (NDZ) for tourism should be 50 mtrs and for eco-tourism 20 mtrs. Similarly in Nicobar group of Islands NDZ (Tourism) can be 100 mtrs and NDZ (eco-tourism) 50 mtrs.
•The Islands with the area smaller with 10 Sq Km should be categorized under IIMPs (Integrated Islands Management Plans).
•Under IIMPs, none of the activities should be prohibited. All the activities should be regulated by Andaman Nicobar Coastal Zone Management Committee (ANCZMA) on case to case basis. Therefore, there is no requirement of having different zoning i.e. preservation/ conservations in the IIMPs.
All the above points were thoroughly deliberated upon by the Chairman and other committee members. There was a broad consensus in the committee on almost all the points. The Ministry was requested to process the case further as per the decisions taken in the meeting.
