The government has made the environmental clearance process more transparent and expeditious. The Environment Minister Anil Madhav Dave has said that the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change received more than 2,300 projects for environmental clearance in the last three years and the current year, and a total of only 432 projects are pending for environmental clearances as on June 30.
Dave added that key projects received for environmental clearances uring the last three years till July 15 include 67 in mining, 82 in infrastructure, six in nuclear, defence and others and in river valley and hydro-electric sector and his Ministry has undertaken various initiatives to make the environmental clearance process more transparent and expeditious without compromising the integrity of the environment, which inter alia include use of information communication technology for environment clearance process, amendment of environment impact assessment notification 2006 delegating more powers to state-level environment impact assessment authorities, standardization of terms of reference for preparation of environment impact assessment report and environment management plan among others.
Former Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar had earlier said that over 2,000 projects involving Rs 10 lakh crore investment, which were stuck for years and some of them in key sectors, have been given environmental clearance in the last two years. Javadekar had also said that in line with the government's policy of ease of doing business, the average waiting period for approval of projects has been brought down to 190 days from 600 days during the UPA regime and the aim now is to slash it further to 100 days.