Construction of passenger aerial ropeway at Patnitop
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, July 20: The Central Empowered Committee of the Supreme Court has decided to conduct inspection of site before according clearance to the construction of much-talked about passenger aerial ropeway at hill resort of Patnitop.
The decision was taken by the Committee headed by its Chairman P V Jayakrishanan after going through the application moved by the Patnitop Development Authority (PDA) seeking vacation of stay on the construction activities, which was granted in a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed several years back by a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) keeping in view environmental degradation at all the famous hill resorts of the country including Patnitop.
The case of the Patnitop Development Authority was pleaded before the Apex Court’s Central Empowered Committee by its Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Raman Kesar and J&K Government’s Standing Counsel, Sunil Fernandes yesterday.
“During previous hearing on the aerial ropeway project held on July 3, the Central Empowered Committee had sought to know from the PDA whether the alignment of the ropeway project passes through any wildlife sanctuary or reserved area”, official sources told EXCELSIOR, adding “for want of information on this aspect, the Empowered Committee had fixed the next hearing on July 19”.
Accordingly, the PDA authorities filed necessary affidavits before the Empowered Committee and after going through the same and other documents furnished by the PDA so far, the Supreme Court’s panel decided to conduct site inspection before according clearance to the construction of passenger aerial ropeway project, whose fate is otherwise hanging in balance for the past several years, sources informed.
When contacted, State Government’s Standing Counsel, Sunil Fernandes said, “the Chairman of Supreme Court’s Central Empowered Committee will decide the date of site inspection in consultation with the State Government”, adding “we have been conveyed that the inspection would be carried out within a period of next one month”.
In response to a question, he said, “the Empowered Committee wants to see whether the information furnished by the PDA on various aspects is in consonance with the ground situation”, adding “since we have furnished whatever information sought by the Empowered Committee particularly with regard to environmental concerns, we are hopeful of early clearance of the project from the Apex Court’s panel”.
Responding to another question regarding the conditions laid down by the Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) of the Union Ministry of Environment and Forest while recommending Environmental Clearance for the project, Mr Fernandes said, “we have also apprised the Empowered Committee about the action taken on the points raised by the EAC”.
According to the CEO of the Patnitop Development Authority, following Empowered Committee’s clearance, the Forest Advisory Committee of State Government headed by Chief Secretary, Madhav Lal would be approached for forest clearance as the same has not been given till date in view of stay granted by the Supreme Court.
According to the Detailed Project Report (DPR), the project involves construction and operation of a passenger aerial ropeway project and associated facilities at Kud, Sangote and Karlah. The ropeway will pass through compartment 95/C of Dudu Forest Range and is almost one kilometer away from compartment 99 of Sudhmahadev Conservation Reserve.
One base terminal station of the ropeway would be at a point close to the 99 kilometer milestone on the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway 1A while as the intermediate terminal will be near Sangote village and the same will be 1269 meter away from the base terminal and at an elevation of 254 meter below the base terminal.
The upper terminal will be at Patnitop close to Hotel Vardan at a distance of 2618 meter from the intermediate terminal and at elevation of 694 meter above the intermediate terminal. The total length of the ropeway will be 2.6 kilometer with 23 trolleys.
The total power requirement for the ropeway has been worked out to be around 750 KVA. For all other activities such as resort, amusement park, shops etc, it is estimated that a further 250 KVA power would be required.
The State Government has already agreed in principle to provide the necessary power at the terminal stations. The total water requirement would be 59 KLD which will be met through the local streams and a rain water harvesting plant has also been proposed to be constructed at village Sangote.
A total of 124 trees of different species within a corridor of 10 meters (5 meters on either side of the center line of the ropeway) would be axed. As the forest exists on both sides of alignment, there is no possibility of adverse effects of wind on the system. However, wind speed meters will be installed at all critical locations.
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