BHUBANESWAR: The state government on Wednesday directed forest officials to fast-track forest diversion proposals involving critical infrastructure projects, including national highways, railways, laying of pipelines and erection of mobile towers.
At a high-level meeting chaired by additional chief secretary (ACS) of Forest, Environment and Climate Change department Satyabrata Sahu, the officials were asked to prioritise issues related to forest land diversion and environment clearance of pending projects at their level. Nodal officers were instructed to monitor, facilitate and ensure compliance at all stages to avoid unnecessary delays and the user agencies advised to submit all required documents, maps and enclosures to the DFOs concerned without delay to reduce processing time.
The ACS examined the progress and current status of key projects listed on the Project Monitoring Group (PMG)/Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation (Pragati) portals of the central and state governments having issues of statutory clearances.
The projects included Capital Region Ring Road (CRRR), Gorumahisani new railway line of South Eastern Railway, 4G-based mobile service project of Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited and BSNL, exploration proposal of the Geological Survey of India (GSI), Kalta iron ore mines of Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL), transmission line projects of OPTCL and integrated steel plant proposal of Kalyani Steel Ltd.
Sahu observed substantial progress in many projects of BSNL and RJIL for laying of optical fiber cable and erecting of towers. While the status of OPTCL transmission line and GSI exploration projects were satisfactory, PCCF (wildlife) Prem Kumar Jha was advised to sort out the wildlife-related issues in the CRRR project expeditiously.
“The DFOs were directed to resolve the land acquisition issues especially in Dhenkanal, Athagarh, Cuttack and Khurda forest areas involving the CRRR project by December 20. The nodal officers were asked to ensure supervision, facilitation and compliance at all stages to avoid unnecessary delays,” said a senior forest official.