A National Environment Appraisal and Monitoring Authority would be set up to streamline environmental clearances, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh declared recently.
“We hope to establish an independent regulator — the National Environment Appraisal and Monitoring Authority — soon. This authority could lead to a complete change in the process of granting environmental clearances,” Singh said at the valedictory session of the international seminar on ‘Global environment and disaster management: Law and society’ held recently.
Staffed by dedicated professionals, the authority will work on a full-time basis to evolve better and more objective standards of scrutiny.
Incidentally, at the same event, Chief Justice S H Kapadia said that the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) should evolve a regulatory mechanism only for appraisal of projects as the project proponent’s report can’t be relied on.
At present, the MoEF has Expert Appraisal Committees (EAC) which are multi disciplinary sectoral expert committees comprising various subject experts and are constituted for appraisal of sector specific projects. EAC is the recommendatory body.
“As far as mining is concerned, the regulatory mechanism should be in charge of pricing also. Mining laws are there but they are flouted at the state level and illegal mining is happening in many States. Excavated minerals should have a price discovery mechanism as there is no machinery to supervise the pricing,” Kapadia said.
He asked the Ministry to simplify its green laws, which were at present so complex it took hours for the court to interpret them. Industry had long complained that the complicated procedures were a barrier.
Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan said the CJI’s suggestions would be taken up seriously.
