Committee of ministers to work on designing the contours of an environment regulator

NEW DELHI: The Cabinet on Thursday set up a committee of ministers to work out the contours of an environment regulator. The comittee comprises environment minister Prakash Javadekar, minister for power and coal Piyush Goyal, rural development and transport minister Nitin Gadkari and Chemicals and Fertilizer Ananth Kumar.

The decision follows the Supreme Court’s order in January this year to set up an environment regulator. Initially, the Court had ordered that the regulator be in place by March 31, given that elections were due, the deadline was extended.

The January 6 order of the Supreme Court made clear that a regulator set up under the provisions of the Environment (Protection) Act to appraise projects and regulate their clearances. The ministers have at their disposal two versions of the proposed regulator.

The first prepared in early 2011, which proposed a two-step process towards setting up an independent regulator by an Act of Parliament. However, the UPA government later junked this proposal describing it as "completely unworkable".

A second proposal was prepared after the Supreme Court ordered the government to establish a regulator in January. Among the issues that the committee of ministers will have to address is the relationship between the Central and State Pollution Control Boards, which functions as the nodal agency to deal with air, water, noise pollution, and the proposed regulator.

It will also have to navigate relations between states and the proposed regulator. The other issue it will need to address is harmonising existing environment laws with functions and powers of the proposed regulator.

The ministry has set up a committee headed by TSR Subramanian to review five environment related laws-the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, Forest ( Conservation) Act, 1980, Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, The Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 and the The Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981.

The UPA government had informed the court on April 2 that it had prepared a draft Cabinet note proposing the functions and broad structure of the proposed regulator/authority and seeking approval of the Cabinet to the proposal.