Green tribunal raps govt for failing to put up approvals

The National Green Tribunal has pulled up the environment ministry for failing to place the forest approvals given to projects in a timely manner and has instructed the ministry to place all approvals in public domain within five days of the decision taken.

Updated on: Aug 14, 2012, 24:20:59 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The National Green Tribunal has pulled up the environment ministry for failing to place the forest approvals given to projects in a timely manner and has instructed the ministry to place all approvals in public domain within five days of the decision taken.

The tribunal's order came in relation to a plea by Bimal Gogoi and Rohit Chaudhary against forest clearance to 1750 MW Demwe Lower Hydroelectric project in Arunachal Pradesh, where the ministry had failed to place the approval letter in public domain.

Although the ministry places the recommendations of its two statutory bodies --- forest advisory committee and expert appraisal committee --- the final decision of the ministry remains shrouded in secrecy. The ministry's website only lists the recommendations of the two bodies but not the final approval given by the ministry. This is despite the Supreme Court in 2011 asking the ministry to upload all forest clearance on its website. However, the no timeframe was given by the court resulting in the ministry dilly dallying on implementing the court's order.

Setting the record straight, the NGT has asked the ministry to place approval letters on its website within a week so that people aggrieved by the decision can seek redressal. As the NGT law, a petition against an approval has to be filed within 30 days of the approval, which can be extended by another 60 days if the a justified reason for the delay.

Inspector General of Forests in the ministry A K Shrivastava, however, blamed the National Informatics Centre for the delaying in displaying the approval given to the projects. "The delay is caused by NIC and the MoEF is not at fault," Shrivastava told the tribunal.

His argument was not accepted by the court on the ground that good governance mandates that the general public should be aware of the forest clearance. "Immense prejudice shall be caused to persons aggrieved if the forest clearance is not published or notified," the tribunal said in its order.

The NGT also directed the state forest departments to display the forest clearances on their respective websites within seven days of receipt of information or display by MoEF on its website, whichever is earlier. The tribunal also directed the project proponents should get it published the decision in the local newspapers.

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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