A confidential report by the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) expressed concerns about possible calamities due to the proximity of the proposed Kalpsar dam and the Mithivirdi Nuclear Power Project

New Delhi: The film grabbed one’s attention. It showed a billboard spouting water out of thin air. It seemed just the answer to the drought in India’s western regions.

Gandhinagar: In a systematic blow to high accolades Gujarat received from the Centre over the “net increase in the mangrove cover”, reports from Jambusar in Bharuch in south Gujarat suggest that things may now be moving in the opposite direction. The reports point to the coastal areas in Gulf of Khambhat where the Gujarat Ecology Commission (GEC) and NGOs jointly developed dense mangroves plantations.

The government has received a complaint from a civil society activist, who happens to be a member of the state-sponsored Gujarat Coastal Zone Management Authority, that heavy mangroves plantation is in the danger of being wiped out.

The Kalpasar dam project, envisaged more than a decade ago to resolve the water woes in Saurashtra and Kutch region in Gujarat, is yet to take off, official sources said.

The ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) on Friday announced the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification, 2011, as part of which the no development zone has been reduced from 200 metre from the high-tide line to 100 metres to meet increased demands of housing of fishing and other traditional coastal communities.