Infra projects: deadline for gram sabha nod in offing
In a bid to attract foreign investment, the government may soon ease norms for seeking gram sabha consent for starting a project - considered a huge roadblock for the infrastructure sector. Chetan Chauhan reports. The long wait for the nod
In a bid to attract foreign investment, the government may soon ease norms for seeking gram sabha consent for starting a project - considered a huge roadblock for the infrastructure sector.
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Several ministries, including road transport and coal, objected to the condition of mandatory consent of the gram sabha, a body of villagers, saying it was causing unnecessary delay in starting a particular project.
The Forest Rights Act, under which this condition has been stipulated, fails to prescribe a time limit within which the gram sabha's views have to be obtained. The environment ministry in 2009 made the consent of gram sabha mandatory for granting final approval to projects in forest areas.
Road transport minister CP Joshi and commerce minister Anand Sharma had written to environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan, seeking relaxation in norms on seeking gram sabha consent to speed up the forest approval process for major infrastructure projects.
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Joshi had said that the project proponent is required to take the consent of a number of gram sabhas, considering that a road has to pass through many villagers. Sharma wanted the removal of the gram sabha condition as it delayed projects and led to unnecessary litigation.
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Joshi had said that the project proponent is required to take the consent of a number of gram sabhas, considering that a road has to pass through many villagers. Sharma wanted the removal of the gram sabha condition as it delayed projects and led to unnecessary litigation.
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According to data available with the government, obtaining forest clearances has become much slower ever since the environment ministry's 2009 circular.
Delay in green clearances has been cited as the biggest reason for increase in cost of infrastructure projects by Rs. 52,000 crore till May this year.
New infrastructure projects worth Rs. 1,25,000 crore have been delayed.
"We don't have a problem if the 2009 circular is modified," a senior environment ministry official said, "But the decision will have to be taken by the tribal affairs ministry."
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.
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