Need effective policies to protect environment: PM

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Thursday that India needs to put in place effective regulatory policies to protect the environment but these should be enforced without bringing back the licence-permit raj.

Environmental concerns have blocked or delayed several large projects, including Posco's steel plant and Vedanta's mining venture in Orissa. Hundreds of coal mining projects are also mired in controversy after the environment ministry demarcated "no-go" areas where further development has been barred.

"It is also necessary to ensure that these regulatory standards do not bring back the licence-permit raj which we sought to get rid of in the wake of economic reforms of the early nineties," the prime minister said.

He emphasised that there is a need to implement policies to discourage the polluters and also provide means of financing to take corrective steps in mitigating the pollution.

"As a general rule we are trying to establish the principle that the polluter must pay though that is much more difficult to achieve," he said.

India is trying to set appropriate standards in various industries especially in the most energy using industries. He cited the initiative taken by the government last year by introducing a 5% cess on the use of coal both domestic and imported to build the corpus of a National Clean Energy Fund.

He said India was engaged in preparing the Twelfth Five-Year Plan (2012-17) which would focus on specific initiatives needed to put the country's development on a path consistent with low carbon growth, energy efficiency and exploitation of renewable energy sources.