Green nod to nuclear research project suspended by NGT

• The Southern Bench of the National Green Tribunal has suspended the Environmental Clearance (EC) granted to the India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) that was to come up in Theni and asked the project proponent to make a fresh application.
• The Tribunal found that the Mathikettan Shola National Park in Idukki district of Kerala was just about 4.9 km from the proposed project site and the Tamil Nadu-Kerala border was just a kilometre away, making it a Category ‘A’ project.
• Under the guidelines laid down by the Environment Ministry, any project that falls within 5 km from an inter-State boundary or within a notified national park or a sanctuary has to be considered a Category ‘A’ project that involves a number of processes before an EC is granted.

About INO:

• The India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) Project is a multi-institutional effort aimed at building a world-class underground laboratory with a rock cover of approx.1200 m for non-accelerator based high energy and nuclear physics research in India.
• The initial goal of INO is to study neutrinos. Neutrinos are fundamental particles belonging to the lepton family.
• They come in three flavours, one associated with electrons and the others with their heavier cousins the muon and the Tau.
• According to standard model of particle physics, they are mass less. However recent experiments indicate that these charge-neutral fundamental particles, have finite but small mass which is unknown. They oscillate between flavours as they propagate.
• Determination of neutrino masses and mixing parameters is one of the most important open problems in physics today.

About EIA(Environment impact assessment)

• Every anthropogenic activity has some impact on the environment. More often it is harmful to the environment than benign.
• However mankind as it is developed today cannot live without taking up these activities for his food, security and other needs. Consequently, there is a need to harmonies developments activities with be environmental concerns. Environmental impact assessment (EIA) is one of the tools available with the planners to achieve the above-mentioned goal.
• It is desirable to ensure that the development options under consideration are sustainable. In doing so, environmental consequences must be characterized early in the project cycle and accounted for in the project design.
• The objective of EIA is to foresee the potential environmental problems that would arise out of a proposed development and address them in the project’s planning and design stage.
• EIA integrates the environment concerns in the developmental activities right at the time of initiating for preparing the feasibility report. In doing so it can enable the integration of environmental concerns and mitigation measures in project development. EIA can often prevent future liabilities or expensive alterations in project design.

By: Vishal