Peoples’ Environmental Council opposes proposed Nowgam industrial park; flags flood risks
Actually, the area was identified as flood-absorption basin after 2014 floods.
STC NEWS DESK
SRINAGAR, AUGUST 17 (STC): Peoples’ Environmental Council (PEC) has raised serious environmental and hydrological concerns over the proposed 50-acre Plug-and-Play Industrial Park at Nowgam in Srinagar. It has urged the government to resolve questions about the site’s relationship with the Jhelum’s flood-absorption system before allowing construction or land filling.
Clarifying that PEC’s assessment should not be interpreted as opposition to the industrial park, industrialisation or employment generation, the environmental organization stated in its press release that the assessment, in fact, calls for policy coherence between industrial development and the government’s investments in flood protection, Jhelum flood recovery, drainage, wetland conservation, disaster-risk reduction and climate adaptation.
In a rapid assessment report prepared by its expert members, PEC in its statement has said the proposed industrial park (approximately at a cost of 104 crore rupees), being planned under the Government of India’s BHAVYA programme, requires a location-specific and cumulative assessment because of the flood-sensitive character of the southern Srinagar landscape.
The council has particularly pointed to the Srinagar Metropolitan Region Master Plan 2035, approved by the State Administrative Council (SAC) in February 2019. According to the report, while approving the Master Plan, the SAC specifically modified the proposal to state that “no development/construction activity” should be permitted along the NH Bypass between Pantha Chowk and Nowgam as the area forms part of a flood-absorption basin.
PEC has sought clarification on whether the proposed industrial park falls within, overlaps, adjoins or otherwise forms part of the flood-absorption basin protected under the 2019 decision.
The report also cites the Government’s post-2014 flood assessment under the Jhelum Tawi Flood Recovery Project (JTFRP). The Environmental and Social Impact Assessment for storm-water drainage in the Bonpora–Padshahi Bagh area recorded that Bonpora, Nowgam, Padshahi Bagh and adjoining areas were inundated for several days during the September 2014 floods.
It further described the wider area as a detention basin and floodplain of the Jhelum, with flood levels of around 2–5 metres recorded in parts of Bonpora–Padshahi Bagh during the 2014 disaster. The assessment also noted that urbanisation, land-use change and degradation of wetlands and low-lying areas had reduced the landscape’s ability to absorb and temporarily retain floodwaters.
PEC said the issue assumes added significance in light of the September 2025 flood episode, when breaches along the Jhelum system threatened or affected several low-lying areas on Srinagar’s southern outskirts, including the wider Nowgam–Lasjan–Soiteng–Summerbugh landscape.
Observing that ‘filling one site can displace floodwater elsewhere’, the environmental group has questioned whether raising the proposed industrial site through filling would preserve the wider flood-absorption function of the landscape.
“Water excluded from one location must be accommodated elsewhere,” the report, which has been shared by PEC with the government, says, arguing that protecting an individual industrial site from flooding by raising its platform does not necessarily protect neighbouring communities or the wider floodplain.
PEC has asked the government to disclose the proposed site’s exact cadastral boundaries, khasra numbers, coordinates, existing elevations and present land-use classification. It has also sought the technical basis and official maps, if the government considers the site to be outside the area covered by the 2019 SAC restriction.
The council has further sought details of any subsequent review or modification of the 2019 SAC decision, including the hydrological or planning evidence that may have justified a change in policy.
The organization has called for a detailed assessment of the potential impact of the proposed development on flood depths, duration, flow paths, water velocities, local drainage and pumping requirements in Nowgam, Bonpora, Padshahi Bagh, Lasjan and adjoining settlements.
It has also asked the government to assess the cumulative consequences of low-lying land filling, expanding built-up areas, road and railway embankments, industrial and commercial development and drainage infrastructure across the wider Pantha Chowk–Nowgam–Lasjan–Padshahi Bagh landscape.
The council has questioned whether alternative sites were examined on the basis of flood exposure, elevation, environmental sensitivity, infrastructure requirements, long-term climate resilience and whole-life costs. It has added that the proposed project should not proceed to construction or site filling until the precise spatial and hydrological relationship of the site with the designated flood-absorption basin is transparently established.
It has recommended a site-specific and cumulative hydraulic assessment using accurate topographic, cadastral and flood-inundation data, along with an assessment of safer alternative locations.
“Where a landscape has already been recognised by Government as performing a critical flood-absorption and detention function, the burden of demonstrating that development will not compromise that function should rest on robust evidence and transparent technical analysis,” the report states.
Precisely, the PEC has ultimately urged the government to reconsider the proposed location if it is found to fall within or materially affect the flood-storage and detention system of the Nowgam landscape. It said a precautionary approach would help protect the Jhelum floodplain, neighbouring communities and the long-term public value of the proposed industrial investment.
(Straight Talk Communications)
