Standing committee of the National Board of Wildlife clears 140 wildlife projects

NEW DELHI: The standing committee of the National Board of Wildlife (NBWL), which met in Delhi this week, is said to have cleared most of the 140 projects it was supposed to review. The meeting ended on Wednesday.

The standing committee meeting took place after a gap of nearly one year. Environment minister Prakash Javadekar who presided the meeting is understood to have stressed that projects should not be held back on "frivolous" reasons.

At the same time, he has stressed on the importance of compliance to conditions specified in the clearances. To improve compliance, Javadekar said that the Wildlife Institute of India will be involved in the designing of projects as well as monitoring.

There are 102 national parks and 515 wildlife sanctuaries in India.