Prepare blueprint to check lake encroachments: HC

The Telangana High Court on Friday instructed Nirmal Collector and Municipal Commissioner to put together a blueprint for prevention of encroachment on lakes within the district.

After listening to a PIL petition on encroachment on lakes in Nirmal district and city, a bench of Chief Justice Hima Kohli and Justice B. Vijaysen Reddy directed the authorities to clarify how they have been going to check encroachments sooner or later. The bench additionally instructed the Collector and the Commissioner to file a contemporary affidavit on how they might hyperlink totally different streams and nalas and be sure that they weren’t encroached upon.

When the listening to started, the bench took exception to the officers failing to take away unlawful constructions on the buffer zone and Full Tank Level (FTL) areas of the lakes within the district. With authorities counsel for municipalities looking for time to “immediately remove encroachments”, the CJ sought to know what he meant by “immediate”.

The CJ reminded counsel that HC had handed an order practically six months in the past to take away unlawful constructions on the lakes. “Are six months not adequate to clear encroachments? What is your criteria for immediate?” the CJ requested counsel. The bench questioned how, with monsoon rains to start in per week or so, the authorities would undertake encroachment removing work.

When counsel stated the authorities have been going through drawback of insufficient workers, the CJ requested him why they may not have interaction contract staff. The CJ made it clear to counsel that officers couldn’t take the excuse of pandemic to clarify the delay in clearing unlawful constructions on the lakes.

The bench discovered fault with the Collector for not constituting a lake safety committee to monitor work relating to razing down unlawful constructions within the neighborhood of lakes. The petitioner’s lawyer Chinnolla Naresh Reddy advised the court docket that development of a temple was undertaken within the neighborhood of a lake when the matter got here up for listening to.

The inaction of the authorities over previous six months resulted in set up of an idol within the temple. When the CJ wished a proof on the purpose, the Collector responded stating that he would personally go to the place, inviting the wrath of the court docket. The Collector defined that authorities couldn’t utterly concentrate on the work due to frequent communal stress in Bhainsa city of the district the place curfew was clamped for over 45 days.

He sought two months to fence all of the six lakes the place unlawful constructions have been developing and clear all unauthorised constructions there. The matter was posted for July 29.