Prohibited Activities Within the Coastal Regulation Zone

In one line

Eleven activities are forbidden everywhere in the coastal regulation zone, and this is the most frequently set question in the module.

In the wording a student can write in an examination: paragraph 4 of the Coastal Regulation Zone Notification 2019 provides that the following activities shall be prohibited in general within the entire coastal regulation zone, exceptions to them and other permissible and regulated activities in the specific categories being governed by paragraph 5, namely the setting up of new industries and the expansion of existing industries, operations or processes; the manufacture or handling of oil and the storage or disposal of hazardous substances as specified in the notification G.S.R. 395(E) dated 4 April 2016; the setting up of new fish processing units; land reclamation, bunding or disturbing the natural course of seawater except for activities permissible under the notification and executed with prior permission from the competent authority; the discharge of untreated waste and effluents from industries, cities or towns and other human settlements; the dumping of city or town wastes including construction debris, industrial solid wastes and fly ash for the purpose of land filling; port and harbour projects in high eroding stretches of the coast; the mining of sand, rocks and other sub-strata materials; the dressing or altering of active sand dunes; the disposal of plastic into the coastal waters; and the drawal of ground water.

How to read paragraph 4

The opening words do a great deal of work and students routinely miss them.

Shall be prohibited, in general, within the entire CRZ. So the prohibition applies to every category, from the sea to the five hundred metre line.

And exceptions to these and other permissible and regulated activities in specific CRZ categories shall be governed by the provisions of paragraph 5. So paragraph 4 is not absolute. It states a general prohibition and paragraph 5 states, category by category, what is nevertheless permitted.

An answer that reproduces the eleven items without the second sentence is incomplete, because it will be unable to explain how a port can lawfully exist in the intertidal zone when reclamation is prohibited.

The eleven, with what each is really about

One, new industries and expansion of existing industries, operations or processes. The core prohibition. Paragraph 5 then permits, in the appropriate categories, industries requiring the waterfront and foreshore facilities.

Two, the manufacture or handling of oil and the storage or disposal of hazardous substances as specified in the notification G.S.R. 395(E) dated 4 April 2016. The cross-reference matters: what counts as a hazardous substance for this purpose is fixed by that notification and not by the general definition in section 2(e) of the Act.

Three, new fish processing units. Not fishing, and not existing units. New processing units, because of their effluent.