Telangana High Court Seeks High Level Committee Report on GO111

On Thursday, a two-judge panel of the Telangana High Court, led by Chief Justice Hima Kohli and Justice B Vijaya Sen Reddy, ordered the state government to submit the report of the High-Power Committee constituted for examining GO 111 within 4 weeks.

The panel continued to hear the petitions related to the permissions and prohibitions of the development activity in areas covered under GO 111. The court questioned that why did the state government ask for more time to submit the report of the High-Power Committee. 

Justice Hima Kohli, speaking for the panel, said the committee and the government have been sleeping over the report for 4 years and 7 months, and asked, "By seeking little more time, do you mean another decade?"

It may be noted that GO 111, issued in 1996, prohibits industrial operations and high-rise structures within a 10-kilometer radius of the two lakes, Himayatsagar and Osmansagar, in order to protect Hyderabad's drinking water supply. Following that, in 2016, GO 839 was issued, forming a High-Power committee to investigate GO 111, with terms of reference that included an investigation of the EPTRI report that exempted a list of 87 pieces of land covering 948 acres in the Vattinagulapally village area. According to the report, parcels of land in the non-catchment region of the land are at risk of being declared as falling outside the watershed boundary.

The panel questioned how the committee report could be submitted without a deadline. The panel ordered the government to deliver the committee's report within four weeks, beginning on August 13, the day on which the committee promised to file it. It was also directed that the High-Power Committee specifically deals with the EPTRI report that exempted certain parcels of land and that the state government examine the report and announce its decision by the end of September 2021 and circulate and upload the report and its decision on the government's official website.