New Parivesh portal will put project proposals’ details, clearances in public domain, clarifies Centre
The new Parivesh portal of the environment ministry will be compliant with India’s transparency law and put in the public domain details of project proposals, and environment and forest clearances after it undergoes a revamp, the ministry has clarified without providing a timeline
New Delhi: The new Parivesh portal of the environment ministry will be compliant with India’s transparency law and put in the public domain details of project proposals, and environment and forest clearances after it undergoes a revamp, the ministry has clarified without providing a timeline.
The website will provide the minutes of meetings of expert appraisal and forest advisory committees, information on environment and forest clearances, coastal regulation zone proposal details and clearances, and minutes of the regional empowered committee, the ministry said in response to an HT report on April 21.
It, however, did not say whether information related to projects such as draft and final environment impact assessments (EIAs), terms of reference (ToRs), pre-feasibility reports and public hearing documents will be made public, as has been the norm till now.
The website will be aligned with the Right To Information (RTI) Act, it said. “Needless to mention that the provisions of extant Acts, Rules & Regulations including those of RTI Act would have to be adhered to ensure that there is no violation of the provisions of any Act, Rule or Regulation,” the ministry said in an email on Saturday in response to detailed queries by HT.
The Parivesh website, which used to provide details on the environmental impact of projects, stopped updating details on environment, forest, wildlife and coastal regulation zone clearances regularly from September last year after the ministry decided that such information would be provided only when sought under the RTI Act in the new website, HT reported on April 21. The decision to make some information available under RTI was taken to protect the interests of project developers, an environment ministry official had said, asking not to be named. He had cited the sensitivity and confidentiality of some of the information.
It is unclear if additional and supporting documents will be visible for all proposals on the new portal and can be accessed by everyone.
“No such decision, restricting disclosure of information relating to proposals in the public domain, has been taken by the Ministry,” it said in its rebuttal on Saturday. “It has always been the priority of the Ministry to ensure transparency and accountability in the functioning of PARIVESH and Ministry has been consistently adhering to it.”
“It is clarified that information as available on PARIVESH such as those related to Project Proposal, Agenda, Minutes of Meeting of Expert Appraisal Committee, Environmental Clearance, Minutes of Forest Advisory Committee Meetings, Forest Clearance, Minutes of National Board of Wildlife, Coastal Regulation Zone Proposal details and Clearances, Minutes of Regional Empowered Committee meetings continue to be available in the Public domain in the revamped PARIVESH,” the email said. “No new directions or orders have been issued in this regard by the Ministry.”
The ministry is upgrading the Parivesh portal to make it more user friendly, incorporating latest IT features that would make it faster, versatile and more efficient and effective, it said.
The ministry, however, did not say whether EIAs, ToRs, minutes of public hearings, fact sheets, etc., will be available in the public domain through the new Parivesh portal.
Many of the web pages in the new portal, also known as Parivesh 2.0, still shows dummy and placeholder texts such as “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit”, for instance, on a page for the agenda of an expert appraisal committee meeting on industrial projects dated April 19.
Some minutes of meetings of projects considered by the forest appraisal committee are available on the new Parivesh website but do not have as much detail as in the previous Parivesh website such as the impact of forest diversion, mitigation efforts needed, etc, experts said. It is unclear if additional and supporting documents visible on the older portal can still be accessed by everyone.
“Parivesh 2.0 is very different from Parivesh. In the enhanced version, we have to upload PAN card, Aadhar card, etc., to get verified and registered. In view of these details, some documents may not be available on the website,” a Delhi-based EIA consultant said, seeking anonymity. “But the website is still being upgraded and will take some time to replace Parivesh.”