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Journalism of Courage
THE PRINCIPAL bench of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Thursday warned several cricket associations of action if they do not file their response by May-end on the steps taken to use treated water and rainwater for maintenance of grounds and on the status of permissions for groundwater extraction. The responses have been sought in a case related to the compliance of the tribunal’s 2021 order.
In 2021, the tribunal had directed the Centre and the BCCI to regulate groundwater extraction and ensure effective rainwater harvesting for maintenance of cricket grounds. A bench of chairperson Justice Prakash Shrivastava, judicial member Sudhir Agarwal and expert member Senthil Vel granted the cricket associations three weeks’ time to file their response. The NGT had last December issued notices to 22 cricket associations and stadium authorities seeking action-taken reports on the issue.
“As many as 22 states were impleaded but only nine have responded (to order dated December 7, 2024). We provide a final opportunity of three weeks to parties who have not filed their response yet,” the bench said.
“Action will be taken if the response is not filed,” the bench said. It also directed the Central and state groundwater authorities to expeditiously process applications seeking permissions for groundwater extraction.
The Central Groundwater Authority (CGWA) had revealed to the tribunal last year that of 26 stadiums, 24 had borewells or tubewells for extracting groundwater. Out of those 24, only four stadiums — M Chinnaswamy, Bengaluru, Vidarbha Cricket Association, Nagpur, Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad and JSCA International Stadium Complex, Ranchi — had permissions for using groundwater and were complying with directions to use treated water.
The CGWA had also submitted in an affidavit last year that 11 grounds were found to be non-compliant with the tribunal’s 2021 order. They were Eden Gardens, Kolkata, Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium, Dharamshala, Atal Bihari Vajpayee Stadium, Lucknow, Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad, Sports Hub International Cricket Stadium, Thiruvananthapuram, Dr Y S Rajasekhara Reddy Cricket Stadium, Vizag, Green Park Stadium, Kanpur, IS Bindra Cricket Stadium, Mohali, MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai and Chaudhary Bansi Lal Stadium, Lahli, Haryana.
The associations that were penalised are Assam Cricket Association, Chhattisgarh State Cricket Sangh, Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association, Cricket Club of India, and cricket associations of Mumbai, Odisha, Rajasthan, Saurashtra, Vidarbha and Maharashtra.
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