Question : ENVIRONMENT CLEARANCES TO PROJECTS

(a) the details of the proposals received from various States for environmental and forest clearances of the projects viz. irrigation dam, power, mining, highways and infrastructure, etc. and are pending with the Ministry for clearance, State and Union Territory-wise;

(b) the reasons for the pendency along with the period since when they are pending. State/year and project-wise;

(c) the number of projects cleared during each of the last three years and the current year, State and Union Territory-wise;

(d) the number of projects rejected during the said period, State and Union Territory -wise along with the reasons therefor; and

(e) the steps taken/strategy proposed by the Government for an early clearance of pending projects in the country and formulation of a viable policy for clearing such proposals?

MINISTER OF STATE (INDEPENDENT CHARGE) FOR ENVIRONMENT AND FORESTS (SHRIMATI JAYANTI NATARAJAN)

(a) to (e): A statement is laid on the Table of the House.

STATEMENT IN REPLY TO PARTS (a), (b), (c), (d) AND (e) OF LOK SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO. 45 FOR ANSWER ON 26/11/2012 REGARDING ENVIRONMENT CLEARANCES TO PROJECTS

(a) and (b): The State-wise details of project proposals pending for environment and forest clearance in the Ministry are at Annexure-1 and 2 respectively. The reasons for pendency of environment clearances include non submission of requisite information by the project proponents, forestry and wildlife issues, etc. The reasons for pendency of forest clearances include site inspection of cases involving more than 100 hectares forest land, incomplete proposals, seeking information from the concerned State Governments etc.

(c) and (d) : The State-wise details of project proposals for which environment and forest clearances were issued and number of cases rejected during the last three years and the current year are at Annexure-3 & 4 respectively. The reasons for rejection of environment clearance cases include non-suitable sites, non-submission of requisite information etc. The forest clearance are rejected mainly on the grounds of the forest areas required to be diverted being of high quality, support rich wildlife, biodiversity and rare/endangered or threatened species of flora and fauna and otherwise high ecological value.

(e): In order to facilitate an early decision on proposal for environmental clearances, various steps have been initiated by the Ministry which include (i) continuous monitoring of the status of pending projects, (ii) regular and longer duration meeting of Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) meeting for consideration of projects in various sectors, (iii) streamlining of the procedure for appraisal of projects, and
(iv) finalization of sector specific manuals in thirty nine sectors alongwith the model Terms of References (TORs), which have been uploaded on the Ministry’s website for the benefit of all stakeholders. State/UT level Environment Impact Assessment Authorities (SEIAAs) have been constituted in 25 States/UTs to deal with Environment Clearance cases of Category ‘B’ projects. As regards expediting the forest clearances, an elaborate institutional mechanism, both at Central as well as at the State/Union Territory Government level has been set up to facilitate scrutiny of the proposals. Further, the Ministry has initiated measures to expedite decision on proposals seeking approvals. Notable among them are the process for setting up of four new regional offices, creation of a GIS based decision support database and a web-based online proposal monitoring system.