Environment ministry rejects Forest panel proposal

The environment ministry has rejected a suggestion of the Group of Ministers (GoM) to form sector-wise forest advisory committees (FACs) to speed up the pace of the project approval process. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: May 29, 2012, 22:54:52 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The environment ministry has rejected a suggestion of the Group of Ministers (GoM) to form sector-wise forest advisory committees (FACs) to speed up the pace of the project approval process.

The GoM on coal and mining issues, headed by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, had asked the environment ministry to set up FACs for each sector, including mining and power. The new format, if accepted, would have meant forest clearance on the lines of environmental clearance, where approval is granted by sectoral expert appraisal committees (EACs). The ministry has, however, not accepted the proposal and the GoM will be informed about the decision on Wednesday. According to a senior ministry functionary, the single FAC is doing its work, and no project is pending before it. “There is no need for sectoral FACs as of now,” the functionary told HT.

Environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan is expected to oppose attempts to dilute green rules at the GoM, and will insist that the ministry continue to follow the Supreme Court directions in this regard.

The SC had said that the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) will decide on projects coming up within a 10-km radius of around 600 protected areas in India. “There is no change in that norm,” she said.

Natarajan, clarifying on the HT report on Monday, said no final decision has been taken on curtailing the powers of the NBWL standing committee. She, however, accepted that the issue of curtailing powers of the committee was discussed.

Non-official NBWL members had also asked the ministry to prepare proper guidelines for processing the projects, and discuss important wildlife conservation issues.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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