Green Clearances Go Online With Time Limits For Approvals

[Spartan]

The government on Thursday kicked off online environment clearances for industrial and infrastructure projects which have for long been hobbled by the slow pace of green approvals.

As part of the transition to an e-window mechanism, for the next three weeks, project developers will be required to submit a hard copy of the application besides filing it online. From July 1, the system will be fully online, environment and forests minister Prakash Javadekar said. There will be a time limit for the entire approval process, with stage-wise timelines. "Efforts will be made to bring down the timelines for each stage," the minister said.

The e-clearance mechanism is the first in a series of online approvals that the government proposes to put in place. In the next stage, forest clearances will be made online and work has begun to give mining-related approvals as well through the same route.

While the original plan was to have a common platform for state as well as central clearances, in the initial phase, the online mechanism will deal with approvals given by the Union environment ministry and its related offices. The government has not launched the system of "deemed approval" either, which will mean that a clearance will be granted if no objection is raised within the stipulated timeframe. This is expected to be in place in the coming months.

[Srinidhi]