PMO asks Environment Ministry to relax norms for road project clearances
The clauses in the relevant laws for accelerating clearances for road projects will apparently be relaxed by the Environment Ministry, on the instructions of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).
The PMO has also told the Road Ministry an amendment can be made in the National Highways Act to ensure that the compensation given to the people whose land has been acquired for construction of highways should be at par with what has been prescribed under the new Land Acquisition Act.
Going by the information shared by the sources, a meeting was recently held to deliberate on measures which can be undertaken for speeding up green clearances related to border states, reserve and protected forests, wildlife areas, etc. The officials who held the meeting to discuss the issue included Nripendra Misra, principal secretary to PM; Road Secretary Vijay Chhibber; and Environment & Forests Secretary V Rajagopalan.
Asserting that speeding up the process of green clearances will necessitate some changes in law, the sources said that the changes “required in the extant guidelines, procedures and mechanism” will probably be notified in a month.
Noting that the idea behind the move to make the changes in the norms is to make the green-clearances process more consistent, predictable and transparent, sources said. “On its behalf, the forest and environment ministry is taking a quick review of difficulties being faced by road ministry in securing environmental, wildlife and forest clearances for their projects.”
Source – The Financial Express
