A petition in the Uttarakhand High Court Doon Valley notification challenges the 2025 amendment in 1989. According to the petition, the amendment reduces its objective and ignores the ecological sensitivity of the valley by allowing to operate industries in the red category.
A division bench of Chief Justice G Narendra and Justice Alok Maharah on Friday demanded a government lawyer to secure the instructions on the same.
The petition was amended to include a prayer to prevent the Gazette notification filed by Congress leader Abhinav Thapar, claiming that the new amendment in the Doon Valley notification, 1989, which was informed on May 13, thwarts the original objective of the notification. 1989 Doon Valley notification, an important tool that classifies pollution -based industries under green, red and orange categories, and restrictions mining, changes in land use, and grazing without Moef & CC node in Doun Valley.
The May Amendment has empowered the state government to approve any other scheme including tourism scheme, grazing scheme, master plan of development, land use scheme and zonal master schemes. It does not cover the orange category industries under the Environmental Impact Assessment Notification, 2006, which is considered by the Uttarakhand State Pollution Control Board. Amendment also creates orange category industries, which are now in the red category, continue, and the expansion of such orange category industries, which are allowed in the circumstances falling in the Schedule to EIA notification.
According to the petition, the amendment does not take into account the ecological sensitivity of the Doon Valley. “It allows all industries to work in the field whether it was originally in the notification of 1989, destroying the very essence of notification … Through this notification, all industries that now fall under the red category are allowed to operate, which thwarts the original objective of the 1989 notification,” it says.
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