Supreme Court clears Shimla development plan

The Supreme Court on Thursday approved the Shimla development plan 2041 that is aimed at regulating construction activities in Himachal Pradesh’s capital city, terming it prima facie “sustainable” even as the court underlined the need to balance development with ecological concerns. The Supreme Court judgment further highlighted the need for sustainable development by balancing between environmental protection and developmental activities A bench headed by justice Bhushan R Gavi set aside the previous orders of the National Green Tribunal, holding that the entire developmental activities cannot be brought to a standstill by staying the development plan, which has been finalised after taking recourse to the statutory provisions and undergoing the procedural rigours. The bench quashed a series of NGT orders since 2017 that restrained the state government from going ahead with its development plan and issued a slew of directions while noting that unplanned and indiscriminate development in the core, non-core, green and rural areas within the Shimla planning area had given rise to serious environmental and ecological concerns. The Shimla development plan was approved in February 2022 by the then BJP-led state government, but it did not materialise owing to the NGT’s stay orders in May that year.