The Hindu : National : Procedure for environmental clearance simplified

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jun 22, 2004

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National

Procedure for environmental clearance simplified

By Our Staff Correspondent

NEW DELHI, JUNE 21. The Ministry of Environment and Forests has simplified the procedure for granting environmental clearances by adopting "good practices" in regulatory procedures such as environmental clearance, forestry clearance, coastal zone regulation, genetic engineering approval committee (GEAC) and animal experimentation.

Adoption of these "good practices" is expected to facilitate decision-making by remedying problems such as uncertainty, delays and protracted correspondence.

These regulatory functions, part of the mandate of the Ministry of Environment and Forests, aim at preventing indiscriminate exploitation of natural resources and promoting integration of environmental concerns in developmental projects.

As part of the "good practices," a standing time-table of meetings of regulator/experts committees has been set up. Now the committees are required to meet on a fixed day each month, when all listed cases would be taken up and, if necessary, by continuing the meeting the following day. If the chair is unable to participate, the vice-chair or a senior member would exercise the powers of the chair.

The list of applications to be considered will be available on the Ministry's website at least 15 days prior to the scheduled meeting. All final decisions of the committees will be put up on the website the next working day after the minutes are finalised within five working days.

Another serious irritant, which greatly adds to the project risk, is uncertainty about when the applications would be initially considered by the committees.

Delays are pervasive and the reason usually is that additional information is sought by the officials, usually in a piecemeal and sequential manner.

To address this problem, it has been decided that all applications will now be scheduled in the next meeting of the committees for initial consideration, provided that at least 30 days have elapsed from receipt.

Secondly, the additional information to be sought must be put up to the committees at the initial consideration of the application, who will, if necessary, modify the suggested list of additional information presented by the Ministry.

On each occasion that an application is considered and some duty is cast on the applicant like submission of additional information, the applicant will be informed. Upon the applicant completing the duty, the next consideration of the application will take place in the next meeting of the committees, scheduled at least 30 days after reporting completion of duty.

Observing that an important opportunity for seeking clarifications from the applicant in person is not availed of, leading to protracted correspondence and delay, it has been decided that on each occasion that an application is before the committees, an opportunity may be given to the applicant to present the proposal and respond to queries.

Now the applicant will be given sufficient reasons in cases of rejection to enable him to represent the case meaningfully.

Finally, no application will be rejected on procedural grounds alone, unless the applicant has deliberately not followed the prescribed procedure in order to realise some unwarranted benefit, which will be recorded in the grounds for rejection.

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