NHAI demands the authority for 25 road project clearances
New-Delhi- The environment ministry was recently requested by the NHAI (National Highways Authority of India) to grant clearance of the 25 road projects which are in the backlog for approval.
As per an NHAI official, they have penned a letter to the environment ministry on January 12 demanding the clearance of the 25 road projects spread across 2,800 km. It was stated by the environment ministry that they have de-linked the environmental and forest clearances for the linear projects. Owing to this, NHAI demands the approval of the 25 projects.
He also stated that although the projects have acquired environmental clearance, the forest clearance is acting as a hurdle.
Until the apex court’s order in 2011, the environmental clearance was de-linked from the forest clearance due to the involvement of Lafarge. Apparently the centre was asked by the Lafarge to make an interim arrangement for forest clearance unless a national environment regulator was created.
In continuation to the Lafarge order, the forest and environment clearances were linked for the linear projects including the railways, roads and laying of power transmission lines.
Due to the delay of the environment clearances, the NHAI and the environment ministry are on the opposite sides and these differences were obvious last month when the GMR infrastructure terminated the concession agreement with NHAI regarding the 555-km Kishangarh-Udaipur-Ahmedabad project which was delayed due to the environment clearances.
With the court order and the impact on their projects, NHAI has demanded the exemption from projects which involve the widening of the national highways to the standard right of way. However, NHAI has also moved the Supreme Court and has demanded the de-linking of the forest clearances from the environmental clearances for linear projects after the GMR issue.
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