Times of India | 1 week ago | 13-05-2022 | 01:46 am
Panaji: The Goa State Environment Impact Assessment Authority (Goa-SEIAA) has directed the proponent of the All-India Institute of Ayurveda (AIIA) project at Dhargalim to pay a penalty of Rs 1.35 crore to get an environment clearance. The decision was taken recently by Goa-SEIAA at its meeting. Last year, the authority received a request for environment clearance for the AIIA project, but when a team reached the site at Dhargalim for inspection, violations were noticed. It was seen that the construction of the project was already underway and that the environment clearance was being sought much later. The Goa-SEIAA had therefore noted that destruction of the environment had taken place. It has now decided that ex-post facto approval can only be granted to the AIIA after a penalty of one percent of the project development cost is paid. “Based upon the confirmation of estimated cost of development given by the project proponent, as per SOP issued by Union environment ministry dated July 7, 2021, 1% of the said amount will be imposed as penalty to give ex-post facto environment clearance after adjustment of the earlier received penalty amount,” the Goa-SEIAA has said. The AIIA will be under AIIMS and recently chief minister Pramod Sawant had announced that there are plans to make the institute and hospital functional from June. “After scrutinising the 146th State Expert Appraisal Committee minutes of meeting, the authority realised that the estimated cost of development so far is Rs 135 crore, out of total cost of Rs 206.1 crore,” the Goa-SEIAA noted. Based on this, the penalty was fixed. The foundation stone for the All India Institute of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy was laid by then Ayush minister Shripad Naik in November 2018. But environmental clearances were sought more than two years later. The institute is coming up in an area of 2 lakh sqm. The first phase of the institute will have 500 seats on offer for students covering different programmes. Comprising a research centre and a 100-bed hospital, the institute will offer post-graduate and graduate programmes, and expand in the future to include courses in homeopathy, unani and siddha systems as well, Naik had announced.
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