Government moots central body to curb green nod delay | India News
New Delhi: To end unnecessary delays in appraising projects for environmental clearance (EC), the Union Environment Ministry has proposed setting up a central body — Standing Committee on Environmental Impact Assessment (SCEIA) — for each state/UT, which will appraise projects when state-level panels are ineffective. The idea behind the proposal is to ensure continuity in the functioning of state-level committees by establishing a separate permanent body as an “interim mechanism” for the purpose of appraising projects and granting regulatory environmental approvals. The permanent body will function and take decisions on green issues only till the state level bodies are formed.In many cases, state-level committees remain defunct due to expiry of their tenure or other circumstances. This causes unnecessary delay in project evaluation.Based on the experience of the past year, the ministry issued a draft notification in this regard on March 5 for the consultation of stakeholders. After processing those suggestions, a final decision will be taken regarding the formation of the permanent body.“If the EC grant application is not evaluated by the concerned State Level Expert Evaluation Committee within 120 days from the date of submission of the complete application by the project proponent, the application will automatically be forwarded to SCEIA, through the PARIVESH portal, for consideration, which will evaluate such project and give its recommendations within the said period.” Ministry’s draft circular.A day after notifying the draft, the ministry on March 6 issued a separate Office Memorandum (OM) on guidelines to be followed by states while sending proposals for restructuring state-level environmental impact assessment authorities and expert assessment committees. It has directed states that the process of finalizing proposals for reconstitution of state-level panels can be started “in advance” so that the proposals, complete in all respects, reach the ministry at least six months before the expiry of the tenure of the state bodies.
