States may take call on townships near sanctuaries

In a boost to the real estate sector, the environment ministry may soon allow state governments to take a call on setting up new townships and information technology and developmental parks near tiger reserves, national parks, eco-sensitive zones and critically polluted areas.

Updated on: Sep 18, 2014, 15:11:11 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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In a boost to the real estate sector, the environment ministry may soon allow state governments to take a call on setting up new townships and information technology and developmental parks near tiger reserves, national parks, eco-sensitive zones and critically polluted areas.

The ministry has already issued draft rules proposing delegation of its power to decide on construction projects within 10 kms of wildlife areas and critically polluted areas to the state governments.

Till now, the central government used to examine such projects to consider its impact on wildlife and critically polluted areas identified by the Central Pollution Control Board before giving a go-ahead.

All other construction projects were allowed to be approved by the state governments as they did not have significant environmental impacts.

But now the ministry has proposed the "general condition" for construction projects including information technology parks, hotels and offices will "not" apply.

The environment impact assessment notification of 2006 said projects identified under the "general condition" - those coming up within 10 kms of a protected wildlife area, critically polluted areas, inter-state boundaries and international boundaries - will be examined by the central government.

The proposal, once notified, would mean that in future real estate projects such as the one coming up near the Okhla Bird Sanctuary in Delhi will require only the state government's approval.

The Centre will have no role to play unlike in the Okhla case where the ministry was directed by the National Green Tribunal to earmark an eco-sensitive zone around the sanctuary. The ministry is proposing 100 sq meters as eco-sensitive zone.

Environment minister Prakash Javadekar has termed such moves as "cooperative federalism" of the Narendra Modi government, saying it would reduce the approval burden on his ministry by 90%.

Sunita Narian, director-general of Centre for Science and Environment, had questioned this, saying that the states do not have capacity to appraise the projects on environmental aspects.

The draft notification comes days after the ministry de-linked forest and wildlife approvals — meaning that a project within 10 sq km of a wildlife area can be approved by the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) without being considered by the National Board for Wildlife.

Earlier, FAC could examine a project for forest diversion within 10 kms of a national park or sanctuary only after it was approved by the standing committee of the wildlife board whose recent re-constitution has run into a controversy.

The ministry had filled the board with retired experts from government institutions, leading to an outcry that "independent" wildlife experts were not there.

These are a slew of changes made by the ministry in environmental regulations for faster project approvals since Javadekar has taken over.

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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