ProMASS News Bureau: Mar 9, 2016:
The National Green Tribunal, NGT today allowed Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s ‘World Cultural Festival’ on the banks of the river Yamuna slated to start on Friday with conditions. The green tribunal imposed five crore rupees fine as environment compensation on the festival’s organiser Art of Living Foundation.
The tribunal also imposed a fine of five lakh rupees on DDA and one lakh rupees on Delhi Pollution Control Committee for not discharging statutory functions. A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar asked the foundation, headed by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar to deposit five crores rupees as environmental compensation before the event begins on 11th of this month.
The green tribunal clearance came on a day the Delhi High Court described the event as a disaster from the ecological point of view. The tribunal also asked the organisers to give an undertaking by tomorrow that enzymes will not be released into Yamuna river and that no further degradation of environment will happen.
Besides slapping the fines, the tribunal directed the Art of Living to develop the entire area in question into a biodiversity park. The tribunal’s order came on the pleas by NGOs and environmentalists who had sought cancellation of the festival on the ground that it would seriously endanger the fragile ecosystem on the riverbed.
