Guwahati, Feb. 16: Dispur is trying to convince the National Green Tribunal to let it set up AIIMS at Jalah near Changsari in Kamrup district and changing the Guwahati master plan for this purpose.

Individuals and organisations have been opposing setting up of the proposed AIIMS at Jalah, saying that the site is a water body and has been identified by the master plan as a green belt zone.

However, Dispur told the National Green Tribunal last week that no water body has existed at the site for decades.

In an affidavit, Assam chief secretary Vinod Kumar Pipersenia told the tribunal, "The said plot of land may have had some water body in 1928 or a few years thereafter, but there are no water bodies in the said plot of land now and even in 1960's decade and thereafter."

The affidavit was a response to a case filed by four persons from Raha in central Assam's Nagaon district, stating that setting up of the AIIMS at Jalah would violate several acts pertaining to protection of the environment. A committee of experts, set up by the Centre and led by senior bureaucrat K.C. Samaria, had earlier recommended Raha for setting up of the AIIMS.

Quoting official records, Pipersenia told the tribunal that the plot has been used as village grazing reserve since 1961 as evident from a document of order dated June 12, 1961 and from the village grazing reserve register maintained since December 26, 1984. "However, necessary correction and update of the land records have not been timely done," he said.

Pipersenia told the court that the government had already started the process to correct the land records and that it would be completed within a short period of time. He said the master plan classification and the map prepared by the Guwahati Municipal Development Authority was also done on the basis of incorrect and outdated land records of the revenue department.

Dispur's claim comes at a time when it is executing various plans in the GMDA area based on the Guwahati master plan, which was prepared by Consulting Engineering Services (I) Pvt Ltd at a cost of more than Rs 1 crore in five years and after many public hearings. The government has allotted 572 bighas at Jalah for AIIMS.

Pipersenia told the court that the master plan has a specific clause for its monitoring and reviewing which allows modification and reclassification of land use.

"There are some clearly visible errors in the master plan relating to the nature and classification of plots of land at Jalah village which is being corrected by the competent authorities by following the due process of law," he said.