Madras High Court permits Chennai Metro to re-route power feeders through protected wetland area for Phase 2 line

The Madras High Court has directed the Tamil Nadu government to grant all requisite permissions to the Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL) for re-routing overhead power lines through a protected wetland area for the Phase 2 metro line..Justice SM Subramaniam directed the Tamil Nadu Chief Conservator of Forests to grant necessary permissions to CMRL within two months, noting that the Chennai Metro project is a public interest project..As part of the Phase 2 work, CMRL proposed to construct a 14.6 kilometer long elevated metro corridor in Chennai from Alandur to Shollinganallur. A part of such corridoor will pass over the Perumbakkam marshland in the city, which is a designated wetland area under the control of the reserve forest. CMRL told the Court that for the Phase 2 line, it will need to re-route 230 KV overhead feeders and construct underground cable lines. For such re-routing, the existing power transformer will have to be dismantled..The State government and the Tamil Nadu Transmission Corporation told the Court that they had no objections to the project. Advocate General R Shunmugasundaram, however, told the Court that in August 2021, the High Court while hearing anticipatory bail applications filed by some land grabbers, had passed an order prohibiting any "non-forestry work in the Perumbakkam marshland. The Court said that while any construction was not normally considered as a "forestry" activity, in the present case, the re-routing was a one-time activity. Therefore, the Court's previous orders restricting "non-forestry work" must not act as an impediment for the metro project, it said."Thus, this Court is of the considered opinion that the order prohibiting any sort of non-forestry activity passed by this Court is not an impediment, since the proposal now mooted out by the CMRL cannot be construed as non-forestry activity and it is an one time installation of underground cable for the benefit of Metro Rail project and thus the order passed by this Court, cannot stand in the way of the authorities to complete the project in all respects, by rerouting the overhead line to underground cable, as per the specifications and designing now placed before this Court, at the earliest possible," the order stated. .Senior Advocate PS Raman and Advocate Rita Chandrasekar appeared for CMRL.Along with the AG, Government Advocate K Karthik Jeganath and Advocate AG Shakeenaa appeared for the State.Advocate DR Arun Kumar appeared for the State Transmission Corporation..[Read order]