Panel set up to re-assess green clearance process

NEW DELHI: Following the push from the PMO, the infrastructure ministries and industry, the environment ministry has set up a committee to review the kind of projects requiring environmental clearance from the Centre. A re-assessment is likely to reduce the number of projects that would have to seek approval from Delhi.

The committee, set up under Planning Commission member K Kasturirangan, will review what kind of projects can be dealt with at the state level and which would require central nod.

At the moment, projects below a certain size or of certain nature require clearance only from the state level environmental authority while the rest are sent to the expert panels set up under the environment ministry in Delhi.

The PMO has been pushing, along with several states, for changing the criteria in some cases to make the clearance process simpler for the industry and infrastructure projects.

Project developers as well as state governments have often found it easier to get projects cleared by the state appointed expert panels rather than sending the projects to Delhi for approval.

Projects which would usually be submitted for clearance to the state governments are instead referred to the Centre if they are located in whole or in part within 10 km from the boundary of either national parks and sanctuaries or critically polluted areas as notified by the Central Pollution Control Board or notified eco-sensitive areas or inter-state and international boundaries.

These restrictions, forcing developers to send their projects for central clearance, have also come under fire from several state governments.

The Kasturirangan panel will take a re-look at these restrictions as well as the overall classification of projects for different levels of clearance and is expected to come back with a set of 'reforms'.