Ministry Enhances Environmental Clearance Process with Increased Regional Offices and Online PARIVESH Portal
The Hon’ble Supreme Court vide Judgement dated 06.07.2011 in the case of Lafarge Umiam Mining Private Limited had issued certain guidelines to be complied with by the Union of India. The Ministry in compliance of the spirit of the directions passed by the Hon’ble Court has taken various steps which inter-alia includes:
The Ministry vide OM dated 09/09/2011 entailed a detailed procedure to be followed for consideration of projects involving forest land for Environmental Clearance (EC). A decision was taken that no EC will be granted without grant of In-principle approval for diversion of forest land under Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam, 1980 to avoid fait accompli situations. The number of the Regional offices of the Ministry has been increased. The proposals for EC and diversion of forest land for non-forest purpose are processed online on PARIVESH portal and the proposal documents are available in public domain on the said portal. The provision was made for constitution of Regional Empowered Committee at each Regional Office. Decision Support System (DSS) has been developed and made operational. DSS system contains geo-referenced layers of forest cover, Forest Types, Biological Richness, Landscape Integrity, Protected Areas, Tiger Reserves and Corridors, GIS layers of Net Present Value (NPV), Hydrological layers. The DSS, a decision making tool, is effectively facilitating the speedy disposal of various proposals/ applications received by the Ministry under the Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam, 1980, Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 and Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.
Database has been created in the PARIVESH portal based on information from the States/UTs and greenwash areas mentioned in the Survey of India topo-sheets. This has been incorporated in the Web-GIS based Decision Support System (DSS) portal made by Forest Survey of India (FSI) for analysis of proposals under Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam, 1980.