S JAGANNATH Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) SHRIMP (Prawn) Culture Industry is taking roots in India. Since long the fishermen in India have been following the traditional rice/shrimp rotating aquaculture system. Rice is grown during part of the year and shrimp and other fish species are cultured during the rest of the year. However, during the last decade the traditional system which, apart from producing rice, produced 140 kgs. of shrimp per hectare of land began to give way to more intensive methods of shrimp culture which could produce thousands of kilograms per hectare. A large number of private companies and multinational corporations have started investing in shrimp farms. In the last few years more than eighty thousand hectares of land have been converted to shrimp farming. India's Marine export weighed in at 70,000 tonnes in 1993 and these exports are projected to reach 200 thousand tonnes by the year 2000. The shrimp farming advocates regard aquaculture as potential saviour of developing countries because it is a short-duration crop that provides a high investment return and enjoys an expanding market. The said expectation is sought to be achieved by replacing the environmentally benign traditional mode of culture by semi-intensive and intensive methods. More and more areas are being brought under semi-intensive and intensive modes of shrimp farming. The environmental impact of shrimp culture essentially depends on the mode of culture adopted in the shrimp farming. Indeed, the new trend of more intensified shrimp farming in certain parts of the country - without much control of feeds, seeds and other inputs and water management practices - has brought to the fore a serious threat to the environment and ecology which has been highlighted before us.

(2.) THIS petition under Art. 32 of the Constitution of India - in public interest - has been filed by S. Jagannathan, Chairman, Gram Swaraj Movement, a voluntary organisation working for the upliftment of the weaker section of society. The petitioner has sought the enforcement of Coastal Zone Regulation Notification dated 19/02/1991 issued by the Government of India, stop-page of intensive and semi-intensive types of prawn farming in the ecologically fragile coastal areas, prohibition from using the waste lands/wet lands for prawn farming and the constitution of a National Coastal Management Authority to safeguard the marine life and coastal areas. Various other prayers have been made in the writ petition. THIS Court issued notice by the order dated 3/10/1994. On 12/12/1994, this Court passed the following order :-

(3.) ACCORDING to the facts placed on record by the Central Pollution Control Board (the Board) the coastline of India's mainland is about 6000 km long. Out of the total landmass of about 3.28 million sq. kms nearly 0.13 million sq. kms of coastal land-belt (considering 25 km landward distance) girdles three sides of the country's sea front which in turn underlays about 0.13 million sq. km sea-bed up to the territorial limit. The Country being riverine, has 14 major, 44 medium and 55 minor rivers which discharge annually about 1566 thousand million cubic meters of water through land drainage into the seas transporting a wide range of pollutants generated by land-based activities. Nine out of fourteen major rivers meet the sea in the east coast (Brahmaputra through Bnagladesh) and the remaining five in the west coast (Indus through Pakistan).