New Delhi: Retired Indian Administrative Service officer and Trinamool Congress MP in the Rajya Sabha Jawhar Sircar has in letters to Union housing and urban affairs minister Hardeep Singh Puri and environment minister Bhupender Yadav pointed out discrepancies in the matter of the adherence to applicable floor area ratio (FAR) and environmental clearances for the massive Central Vista redevelopment project in New Delhi.TMC MP Jawahar Sircar. Photo: Facebook.Sircar had posed questions to both the ministries with regard to the FAR and environment clearance respectively in the Rajya Sabha.Upon receiving written replies to his queries from the respective ministers of state, he shot off letters to the two Cabinet ministers to raise his objections to the manner in which the Narendra Modi government’s ambitious and dream project is being pushed in alleged violation of the norms.Also read: A Demolition Drive Called the Central Vista ProjectSircar had asked the ministry for housing and urban affairs about the FAR permitted for building in the Central Vista area; and the FAR proposed in the Delhi Master Plan 2041, the draft of which is under public consultation. He had also sought the FAR emerging for the proposed buildings along the Central Vista according to the ground coverage and the floor plans admitted by the government and available in the public domain, and if there were any discrepancies between these FAR numbers and, if so, the reasons for that.Discrepancies in FAR allegedIn response to the question, the minister of state for housing and urban affairs, Kaushal Kishore, stated on December 13 that “as per the Master Plan for Delhi, 2021, the Central Vista area falls in Zone ‘D’ where the permissible FAR for government office buildings is 200″.To the query on what is proposed in MPD 2014, the reply said, the new place “is still at the draft stage and no specific norms for Central Vista are in the draft”.Kishore replied to the last two queries on the FAR for the proposed buildings, saying, “The FAR and ground coverage for the proposed buildings in Central Vista are as per prescribed norms for Zone ‘D’ of the Delhi Master Plan, 2021.”Writing to the housing and urban affairs minister on December 18, Sircar referred to the reply he received and stated that there appeared a discrepancy with relation to the FAR.“From the designs placed in the public domain, the total built area (ground floor multiplied by the number of floors) of the CCS (Common Central Secretariat) buildings leads to an FAR of more than 300, that is higher than permissible,” he pointed out.The former bureaucrat also insisted that the underground metro and other facilities have not been included in the FAR calculation. “It also appears that the underground Automatic People Move, which is presented in your EC (environmental clearance) application, has been kept out of this FAR calculation,” he said.The MP, therefore, asked Puri “to explain the facts and the reasons thereof, remembering that this inclusion or exclusion of underground facilities may have a direct bearing on other projects, especially those that drive on profiteering”.Questions on environmental clearance for the projectSircar had also posed questions to the ministry of environment, forest and climate change with regard to the Central Vista project. He had asked if any specific environmental clearance was obtained from the Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) for the major changes envisaged by the avenue development along Rajpath lawns, road and entire public landscape as part of the project.To this, the minister of state Ashwini Kumar Choubey had replied on December 9 that “no special environmental clearance is required for redevelopment of Central Vista Avenue as total built-up area proposed is less than 20,000 square metres”.To another query on “whether the government is aware of the extent of environmental change in the permeable surface due to radical increase in the area devoted to parking and the addition of a U-shaped connecting underground rail with the adjacent Metro station which necessitates environmental clearance”, the minister responded saying “environmental sustainability is at the core of the development/ redevelopment of Central Vista”.Also read: Central Vista: Citizen’s Collective Urges Environment Ministry Not to Accept CPWD’s Latest ProposalHe added that “the overall green cover within the Central Vista will increase” and insisted that the “parking area is also provided with grass pavers and there will not be any major reduction of permeable surface”. As for the plan for underground metro connectivity, the minister replied that it was “currently at planning stage”.In view of these replies, Sircar wrote to environment minister Yadav on December 18 that as his ministry is “custodian of the Environment Protection and Pollution Control Acts, Rules and Notifications”, he would be aware that “since the Central Vista Avenue Redevelopment Project is about 80 hectares, it surely requires environmental clearance”.He said the law that the ministry had always insisted that projects “covering an area >50 ha” have to seek environmental clearance, even if the built-up area is less than 20,000 sq.m”.Sircar added that the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) was as such “duty-bound to make an application as a Township and Area Development Project under category B1, that is set out in the schedule titled ‘List of Projects or Activities Requiring Prior Environmental Clearance'”.The MP further stated that Category B1 projects require a detailed environmental impact assessment and the framing of an environmental management place, as well as a detailed two-stage approval.Therefore, he urged the environment minister to “decide and inform whether the CPWD can keep the underground Automated People Mover outside its calculation of 20,000 sq.m. of built-up area to keep the project below the mandatory requirement of seeking environmental clearance”.Sircar also cautioned that it may have “wide and dangerous repercussions on private projects in future”.