Ghaziabad, Feb 20 (IANS): The National Green Tribunal (NGT) Thursday ordered civil officials of Uttar Pradesh to establish what measures have been taken to maintain biodiversity and ground water level in the state.

The NGT said the Public Works Department secretary should hold a meeting with officials of the Ghaziabad Nagar Nigam, Ghaziabad Development Authority and Uttar Pradesh Jal Nigam, and pass directives to ensure that construction in parks should be done only with permeable material so as to ensure replenishment of ground water.

Observing that ground water level has gone down to 19 metres, the NGT issued notice to government agencies in Ghaziabad on a petition filed by Akash Vashishtha of the Hindustan Environment Action Group against "mindless concretisation".

The petitioner said blatant concretisation was increasing temperatures by six degrees Celsius, raising atmospheric carbon levels, preventing ground water replenishment, thus leading to wastage of up to 90 percent of rain water in the National Capital Region.