<\/p>\n
News<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Union Environment Ministry has recently brought out a proposal\u00a0of\u00a0ranking\u00a0States on how quickly they could give environmental clearances to proposed infrastructure projects.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Many environmentalists have objected to this step and also stated\u00a0that it contravenes\u00a0the\u00a0basic principles of environmental regulation.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n SEIAA consists of\u00a0<\/span>State officers and independent experts.<\/span><\/b>\u00a0Infrastructure projects above a certain size which have a potential to significantly alter the natural environment need to be approved by SEIAA.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Projects that are even bigger or involve\u00a0<\/span>forest (category A) get clearance by Centre<\/span><\/b>.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Category B<\/span><\/b>, which get\u00a0<\/span>clearance by SEIAAs<\/span><\/b>\u00a0are relatively smaller though they make up the bulk of projects that are presented for approval. They include building and construction, small mining, and small industry projects and are considered to be\u00a0<\/span>\u2018less polluting<\/span><\/b>.\u2019<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Companies seeking approval upload the required documents on the portal called\u00a0Parivesh.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Environment Ministry has set out seven criteria to rate State Environmental Impact Assessment Agencies (SEIAA).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n They get better ratings if they give faster clearance. Also, if lesser projects prompted a site visit by committee members, the SEIAA will get better ratings.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This has been termed by some\u00a0organisations\u00a0working in environment sector as being \u201cviolative\u201d of the Environment (Protection) Act. According to them it gives\u00a0<\/span>greater weightage to less scrutiny and faster clearance<\/span><\/b>\u00a0while the main task of SEIAA is to undertake a \u2018detailed scrutiny\u2019.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n However, ministry officials have clarified that the ranking criteria was not intended to accelerate the speed with which clearances were accorded. It is to encourage the SEIAA to adhere to timelines already specified by the provisions of the Act.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Even the\u00a0EoDB\u00a0rankings are not the sole determinants of actual investment flows. Tamil Nadu ranks lower than both UP and Bengal. But the state attracts some very big projects. For example-Ola\u2019s e-scooter plant in\u00a0Krishnagi<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Although government should try to balance economic and environmental interests but\u00a0<\/span>SEIAAs<\/span><\/b>\u00a0should\u00a0<\/span>only strive to safeguard the environment<\/span><\/b>.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Source-<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span>This post is based on the article \u201c<\/span><\/b>Environment Ministry\u2019s plan to rank states draws ire<\/span>\u201d published in\u00a0<\/span><\/b>The Hindu\u00a0<\/span>and \u201c<\/span><\/b>Speed isn\u2019t the point: Environmental ranking of states based on how swiftly they clear projects is not desirable\u201d published in Times of India\u00a0<\/span>on 21st Jan 2022.\u00a0<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" News\u00a0 Union Environment Ministry has recently brought out a proposal\u00a0of\u00a0ranking\u00a0States on how quickly they could give environmental clearances to proposed infrastructure projects.\u00a0 Many environmentalists have objected to this step and also stated\u00a0that it contravenes\u00a0the\u00a0basic principles of environmental regulation.\u00a0\u00a0 What are State Environmental Impact Assessment Agencies (SEIAA) and What do they do?\u00a0 SEIAA consists of\u00a0State officers… Continue reading Environment Ministry\u2019s plan to rank states draws ire<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10320,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[216,10496],"class_list":["post-163689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-3","tag-times-of-india","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163689\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What are State Environmental Impact Assessment Agencies (SEIAA) and What do they do?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n
What are the concerns regarding the recent proposal?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n
What should be the way forward?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n