The Supreme Court on Thursday expressed concern over vanishing wetlands in the country, including in Bengaluru, and asked the Centre to explain the “huge amount” of money spent on various works related to preservation of waterbodies.
A wetland is a land area that has water, either permanently or seasonally, and takes on the characteristics of a distinct ecosystem.
The court cited reports of disappearance of lakes in Bengaluru and the Chennai flood in 2015.
“So many of these wetlands have vanished. In 2015, there were floods in Chennai. The reports said that there was flooding as wetlands have vanished. In areas like Bhopal and Bengaluru, lakes have disappeared,” a bench comprising Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta noted.
The government told the court that it had prepared a fresh affidavit giving details of identification and inventorisation of over two lakh wetlands in the country.
However, advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing for PIL petitioner M K Balakrishnan, said the Centre had not yet complied with the top court’s earlier order and had not explained where the money had been spent.
“There are two to three things. Huge amounts have been spent on it. We do not know where the money has been spent,” the bench told the counsel representing the Centre and asked as to “what steps have you taken on it?”
The bench asked the petitioner’s counsel to go through the Centre’s affidavit, and posted the matter for further hearing after four weeks.
The court earlier sought details of Rs 945.95 crore spent on various works related to wetlands and had said that the activities shown were extremely general in nature.
It had asked the Centre to inventorise all 2,01,503 wetlands to protect and notify them in consultation with the state governments.
Published 20 July 2017, 21:27 IST