The Ministry of Environment and Forests, currently under attack for being allegedly too rigid in providing clearances to projects, has lifted an earlier moratorium in this regard on eight more critically polluted areas.However, the MoEF has indicated that the respective state governments and pollution control boards need to adhere to strict implementation of action plan to contain pollution.
The eight, areas include Ludhiana (Punjab), Varanasi-Mirzapur (UP), Agra (UP), Bhavnagar (Gujarat), Cuddalore (Tamil Nadu), Dombivalli (Maharashtra), Aurangabad (Maharashtra) and Navi-Mumbai (Maharashtra).
This move comes close on the heels of MoEF's decision to grant conditional clearance to the Lavasa hill city project, environment clearances to the Navi Mumbai airport and the 10,000 Mw Jaitapur nuclear power project and revised the coastal regulation zone notification allowing redevelopment along the coastline in Mumbai and other states.
Besides, the ministry gave a conditional clearance to South Korean steel-maker Posco for its $12-billion steel plant and also to SAIL for extracting iron ore from the Chiria mines in Jharkhand.
MoEF had imposed a moratorium on January 13 last year on environmental clearance for new projects (and expansions) in 43 critically polluted industrial clusters in order to stimulate environmental remediation/mitigation activities by industry and by the state governments concerned.
These 43 clusters are part of total 88 important industrial clusters where the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) had carried out a comprehensive environmental assessment in 2009.
This assessment was released on December 24, 2009 and was based on the Comprehensive Environmental Pollution Index developed by a number of prominent academic institutions, led by IIT-Delhi, which were also associated with the field-level assessments. Of the 88 industrial clusters, 43 were identified as "critically polluted".
MoEF said it had earlier lifted moratorium on five critically polluted areas, on October 26 last year based on recommendations by CPCB.
These were Patancheru-Bollarum (Andhra Pradesh), Tarapur (Maharashtra), Mandi- Gobindgarh (Punjab), Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu) and Vapi (Gujarat).
MoEF has lifted the moratorium from the eight other areas based on the formulation of action plans by respective state governments to deal with the pollution.
These plans would be reviewed by the CPCB and subsequently state governments would revise, based on the CPCB review. Further, the ministry has made it clear that the states would actually have to launch the process of implementing the revised action plans.
On the moratorium on the 43 critically polluted areas, the ministry said the process of verification of implementation of action plans in another 25 critically polluted areas is under way and it is expected to be completed in the next three-four weeks. After which a decision would be taken on lifting it in these areas.
Revised action plans for five critically polluted areas - Korba (Chhattisgarh), Bhiwadi, Jodhpur and Pali (Rajasthan) and Najafgarh Drain Basin, including Anand Parbat, Naraina, Okhla and Wazirpur (Delhi), - are still awaited by the CPCB.
