Noida: National Green Tribunal will hear an application on Wednesday challenging a gazette notification issued by Union Ministry of Jal Shakti on Aug 10, which amends River Ganga (Rejuvenation, Protection and Management) Authorities Order, 2016, and opens the way for construction on the river’s floodplain.The ministry, exercising powers under Section 3 of Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, introduced two changes through the second amendment to the 2016 order. First, it removed the term “construction-free zone.” Second, it redefined “floodplain” to include an “active floodplain,” now demarcated using a one-in-five-year flood return period instead of the earlier one-in-100-year parameter.Environmental activist Dr Amit Kumar filed an application on Friday under sections 14 and 18 of NGT Act seeking an urgent hearing, calling both amendments detrimental to environmental protection across the ecologically sensitive Ganga basin. He has argued the changes are legally unsustainable, ecologically destructive and ultra vires, saying they dismantle protections the 2016 order had accorded the Ganga basin. The Union of India (through ministry of Jal Shakti), National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) and environment ministry have been impleaded as respondents.In his petition, Dr Kumar states that the amendment deletes the mandatory requirement under Paragraph 4(ix) of the 2016 order, which had declared Ganga’s banks and floodplains a “construction-free zone.” This has been replaced with more permissive language stating the areas “shall be maintained… through necessary measures.” “If the amendment wanted to include beneficial actions for proper management of the floodplains, govt could have either retained the term ‘construction-free zone’ or could have defined the provisions of ‘proper management’,” Dr Kumar argued.He has also called the redefinition of “active floodplain” regressive. “This amendment effectively opens up vast multi-decadal flood buffers (25-year and 100-year zones) for commercial, industrial, and real estate encroachment. This dilution constitutes an existential threat to Ganga, the sacred ecological lifeline sustaining over 500 million citizens,” he said.Kumar further contended the ministry has misapplied Section 3 of the parent Act, which he says restricts delegated executive powers exclusively to protecting and improving environmental quality. “One cannot exercise its power under this section to dilute the safeguard provisions of law,” he said. The petition also argues the notification undermines binding directives from Supreme Court in the M C Mehta case, which ordered floodplains across Ganga’s stretch to remain non-negotiable “no-construction zones.”Under the amended definitions, “active floodplain” refers to the area flooded under a one-in-five-year return period — replacing the earlier definition of floodplain as the area flooded due to the river’s greatest flow or a once-in-a-hundred-years flood. The floodplain is now divided into three parts: the active floodplain; a regulatory zone (covered by floods between the one-in-five-year and one-in-25-year return periods); and a warning zone (between the one-in-25-year and one-in-100-year return periods).Kumar said that once the amendment takes effect, there will be no construction-free zone on the floodplain, and the floodplain’s overall extent will shrink to the area covered by a one-in-five-year flood — effectively allowing industries and residential colonies to be built directly on the riverbanks.
