Axed Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan may be sulking on being unceremoniously divested of her portfolio but the fact remains that she was sitting on 15 projects worth `5 lakh crore for the last eight months, despite them being cleared by the Cabinet Committee on Investment (CCI). Now, her successor M Veerappa Moily has breathed new life into the projects by putting them on the fast track.
The change is visible in the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) after Moily has taken the reins as he has asked the ministry to put the projects on fast track as all issues related to the projects were resolved by the CCI and there was no reason for them to be delayed.
“We are seeing a movement in cases pending with the environment ministry and files are actually being pushed and we hope in the next two weeks, decision would be taken on many pending issues,” said an official at the Cabinet Secretariat.
Moily, who also holds the petroleum portfolio, is spending lot of time in the MoEF, shuttling between his Shastri Bhawan and CGO Complex offices.
Of the 15 projects cleared by the Project Monitoring Group (PMG) of CCI, the largest number of pending projects was from the coal, power, petroleum and natural gas, steel and road, transport and highways sectors.
The PMG had resolved issues pertaining to 29 projects pending with the Environment Ministry after holding meetings with all the respective ministries. While 14 projects were finally cleared by the MoEF, 15 are still pending.
Of the pending projects, about three each from the power, steel and petroleum sectors are worth over `1.5 lakh crore. The projects of the road, transport and highways ministry are worth `3,379 crore while of the commerce and industry ministry are for `2,400 crore.
The expansion of the iron ore mine at Gua, Jharkhand is worth `3,000 crore and the share of projects owned by private companies is `1,000 crore and that of private coal companies is `4,583 crore.
For all the projects, the ministry is yet to give any valid reason for delaying environment and forest clearance even after all issues were resolved.
The CCI has sought an Action Taken Report (ATR) by the first week of January 2014 from all ministries on the status of compliance. It has also started monitoring the actual investment made on the ground after the projects were cleared.
“We hope that several projects which were cleared by CCI and are not yet cleared by the MoEF will be cleared by the time we receive the ATR. We don’t see any valid reasons why the projects where all issues have been resolved are still pending,” the official said.
The issues that delayed the projects include delay in according forest and environment clearance, non-constitution of Environment Appraisal Committee (EAC) and the Standing Committee of the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) and delay in approval of the minister. The PMG has also asked the Environment Ministry to streamline processes relating to the grant of environment and forest clearances but the ministry is yet to get back.
“Moily has asked to take fast decisions on all pending files and he has been clearing a lot of files in the last one week,” said an environment ministry official. Moily has also stayed Natarajan’s previous order of restricting mining in Western Ghats and had asked the chief ministers of six states to give their views before taking a final decision. One of the projects cleared by CCI in Maharashtra also falls in the Western Ghats.
Push for Defence Projects
With India building up security infrastructure along the Indo-China border, the Ministry of Environment and Forests has cleared almost every project related to it in Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim.