The Effectiveness of the 2019 Notification, and the Criticism of It

In one line

The University asks whether the latest coastal notification works, and the answer has four objections and three defences.

In the wording a student can write in an examination: the effectiveness of the Coastal Regulation Zone Notification 2019 is assessed by reference to what it improved, namely the definition of the tidal limit by salinity, the classification of the zone into seven categories, the conditional character of the relaxations, the decentralisation of clearance, the district level committees with fishermen on them, the regularisation of community dwellings and the transparency obligations; and by reference to four objections, namely the reduction of the No Development Zone and the creek distance, the extent of the tourism permissions, the dependence of the entire regime on management plans that are late, and the fact that a regime of this consequence exists as an executive notification amendable without parliamentary scrutiny.

What the notification improved

The tidal limit is now defined scientifically. Fifty metres or the width of the creek along tidal influenced water bodies, with the tidal influence determined by a salinity of five parts per thousand measured in the driest season. That replaces an arbitrary distance with a measurable one.

The classification is finer. Seven categories against four in 1991, with CRZ-I split into the ecologically sensitive areas and the intertidal zone, and CRZ-III split by population density.

The relaxations are conditional. The fifty metre No Development Zone applies only where a management plan framed with a due consultative process has been approved, failing which two hundred metres continues. That ties the benefit to the completion of the planning exercise.

Clearance is decentralised sensibly. CRZ-I and CRZ-IV remain with the Ministry; CRZ-II and CRZ-III go to the State Authority; a project traversing a sensitive category goes back to the Ministry; and a self-dwelling unit up to three hundred square metres needs no recommendation at all.

Enforcement reaches the district. District level committees under the District Magistrate, with at least three representatives of local traditional coastal communities including fishermen, and the option of devolving enforcement to the District Magistrates.

The community dwellings were regularised. On two conditions that confine the benefit to the community: no commercial use, and no sale or transfer to a non-traditional coastal community.

Transparency was made mandatory. Half-yearly compliance reports on 1 June and 31 December, published in the public domain and displayed on the regulatory authority's website; and a dedicated website for each Coastal Zone Management Authority carrying the agenda, minutes, decisions, clearance letters, violations, action taken and court matters, and the approved plan.

The four objections

One, the belt was narrowed. The No Development Zone in a densely populated rural stretch fell from two hundred metres to fifty; the creek distance fell from one hundred metres to fifty. Neither change follows from a scientific finding, and both open large areas of shoreline.