COASTAL REGULATION ZONE IN INDIA (1991) "coastal stretches of seas, bays, estuaries, creeks, rivers and backwaters which

are influenced by tidal action (in the landward side) up to 500 meters from the HTL and the land between the LTL and HTL as the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ)". Demarcation of high tide line High tide line (HTL) in the coastal regulation zone notification is defined as line up to which highest high tide reaches in spring tides. It is delineated by walking over or remote sensing data or by helicopter survey. Demarcation of low tide line The low tide line is the limit up to which the lowest low tide recedes during spring tide.

Further, activities such as industries, disposal of hazardous substances, fish processing, effluent discharge, landfilling, land reclamation, mining, harvesting ground water, construction and landscape alteration are banned within CRZ with a few exclusive exceptions.

Important national activities within CRZ requiring waterfront, such as ports and harbours, defence requirements and thermal plants are regulated and cleared after critically evaluating the proposal.

CRZ CLASSIFICATION AND DEVELOPMENT REGULATIONS For regulating coastal zone activities, coastal stretches within 500 meters of high tide line on the landward side are classified into four categories. CRZ-I covers areas that are ecologically sensitive and important as well as the zone between low and high tides No new construction shall be permitted here except for extremely critical necessity. fall the most sensitive areas with mangroves and corals. CRZ-II covers areas that have already been well developed with all infrastructure like roads, sewerage lines, water supply pipes etc. laid out, such as within urban and municipal limits(is towns and cities where buildings are already touching the sea) No new constructions on the seaward side of the road can come up here and reconstruction of existing structures will be restricted.

CRZ-III covers areas that are relatively undisturbed and not falling under the above two zones Here, up to 200 meters is no development zone, 200 to 500 meters can be used for hotels and beach resorts temporarily under permission while traditional rights of fisherman to build small structures are honoured.

includes undeveloped areas and tourist places where permission is allowed on a case-to-case basis in a band up to 200 m from the sea.
CRZ-IV covers areas in islands except those designated in CRZ I, II and III Here, no buildings can come up within 200 meters and after that more than 2 floors are not allowed. Besides, use of corals and sands, dredging and underwater blasting are also banned.

is areas like Andamans and Lakshwadeep.

WISDOM IN CRZ POLICY

1. CRZ policy provides a blanket restriction on all activities in a zone that we generally understand to be fragile.

2. It allows the sea to operate freely in the 500 meter domain beyond the high tide line.
3. At first it applies an equal brake to all developmental activities and allows the society to take up a vigilant approach. 4. It segregates nationally important activities from not so important ones. To some extent, it prioritizes socially oriented activities over the profit oriented activities. 5. It is not fully inflexible and is not development unfriendly. 6. It accepts the past developments and attempts to minimize further damage in zones that have already had urban growth.

WEAKNESSES OF CRZ POLICY 1. CRZ operates only landwards. It does not address activities below the low tide line. 2. Since the HTL is the bottom line, establishment of nation-wide HTL has become a necessity. HTL is not easy to demarcate, especially for areas that are fast changing like the Gulf of Cambay. Even after 8 years of the initial notification of CRZ, HTL has not been fully and accurately established for the entire country with a coastline of 7600 km. Meanwhile, certain projects seem to be taking advantage of the practical ambiguity of the HTL. 3. The '500 m' per se has no scientific validity. If 500, why not 501 and so on. Now, this one is very tricky, isn't it? An industry comes up on the 501st meter and you can do nothing about it. The one meter extra is not likely to protect our environmental interests. On the other hand, you establish a polluting industry on the 501st meter today and if you have an erosive coast, the industry might be on the 499th meter after a while. Surely, no country is going to update its HTL every quarter of a year with an accuracy of fraction of a meter. Hence, the landward extent of CRZ should be delineated in relation to the coastal elements, which is of course not an easy task, rather. But it would be more practical.

4. CRZ policy may surely bring in caution in development, but it also slows down the development and makes way for innumerable litigations as we have been seeing. Justice will have to be done either to environment or to society or perhaps to both. But, justice delayed is as good as justice denied. It is especially true in a changing environment.

5. CRZ is blind towards global change. All these rigid numerical extents would look meaningless tomorrow, if they are not already - today. Moreover, the classification would not hold good in the event of global change.
6. Putting up structures such as sea wall, groin and such erosion protective measures also need to go through the CRZ procedure and damage mitigation on an urgent basis becomes very difficult. Hence, it appears that the classification requires another zone (say zone V) where hazards are frequent and mitigation is imminent. 7. Some transitional environments like lagoons are not very well covered. The entire definition of CRZ is based on tidal action but there are areas in the lagoons that are not influenced by tides. But they are a part of the coastal zone in view of the typology of gross processes. Likewise, there could be other important zones outside the tidal action like the sand dunes that are important to protect. CRZ should become more comprehensive to include an area that is in the broad level functional domain of coastal action.

8. If CRZ becomes more inclusive, it should become selectively flexible too in some ways, lest it would hamper genuine development. 9. CRZ clearance authority is vested with the federal Government and it is a long way for clearances. Any wise practice (including regulation) should portray timeliness in order to be effective and purposeful. Of the four zones, not very critical zones may be identified and the local Government may be authorised to provide clearance, so that development is speeded up.

Better late then never, Govt works on new rules for coastal areas It may be too early to look for a silver lining to the tsunami tragedy but this could very well be the first one: the disaster and its horrifying aftermath are being factored in by a high-powered scientific Government committee as it prepares a comprehensive review of regulations determining settlement and development along the countrys 6,000-km coastline. This committee, headed by agriculture scientist M S Swaminathan, was set up in July this year to review existing Coastal Regulation Zone norms notified in 1991.. According to experts, if CRZ had been implemented in letter and spirit, there wouldnt have been so many people so close to the seaunprotected, exposed to the waves. CRZ rules are also meant to ensure a natural line of defencemangroves, corals and sand dunes. Tsunamis have been rare but a wall of water hitting the coasts in the form of cyclones has always been a reality. The Swaminathan committee is going to keep all this in mind, said Prodipto Ghosh, Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Forests.

Though Swaminathan is not ready with the report yet, he has indicated that there will be a plan to regenerate mangroves and natural sand dunes. For example, the mangroves in Pichavaram and Muthupet region in Tamil Nadu acted as shields and protected traditional communities. But in Alappuzha and Kollam, where there is illegal sand mining, devastation has been more widespread. CRZ has never really been implemented fully with violations beginning as soon as the notification became law. Construction was done in the no development zone and groundwater was illegally tapped especially by industries.