The Union environment ministry has “given up” on a star-rating system it had introduced in January 2022 to evaluate expert environmental bodies in states on their efficiency and promptness in granting prior environmental clearances to industry and infrastructure projects, according to an order by the National Green Tribunal’s (NGT’s) southern zone bench in Chennai.
The Centre informed the NGT of its stand as part of the proceedings of a plea which had challenged an office memorandum (OM) rolling out the star-rating system.
The ministry’s stand now makes the January 2022 “inoperative”, a bench of judicial member Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana and expert member Satyagopal Korlapati said in their order, which was passed on March 27 and made public on Thursday.
“… The learned counsel appearing for the MoEF&CC [Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change] states that the O.M. dated 17.01.2022 is given up and a new office memorandum regarding the criteria may be developed later. Therefore, we record that the O.M. dated 17.01.2022 becomes inoperative,” the NGT order recorded.
A Tamil Nadu-based fishermen’s association had challenged the OM on the grounds that it was arbitrary and would result in a dilution of scrutiny of projects under the 2006 Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) notification. The Centre had last year submitted that it had not given effect to the order but defended it by saying it did not affect the clearance process as provided under the EIA notification.
The Centre had introduced the star-rating system on January 17, 2022, to incentivise the states through a star-rating system based on efficiency and timelines in the grant of environmental clearances. “This is intended as a mode of recognition and encouragement as well as for prompting improvements where needed,” the OM had stated.
The OM was issued in the backdrop of a November 2021 meeting chaired by then cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba to review action on promoting ‘ease of doing business’, where ranking states based on time taken to grant clearances was discussed.
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Specifically, the OM proposed to rate the State Environment Impact Assessment Authorities (SEIAAs), which appraised and cleared projects at the state level, on a scale of 0 to 7. It had proposed to rate these bodies on the number of days taken to clear proposals, adherence to timelines and time taken to process applications and pre-approval stages.
Under the 2006 EIA notification, projects are categorised on the basis of their size and potential impacts. Category A projects are appraised by the Centre and Category B projects by SEIAAs.
During the hearing on March 27, the environment ministry submitted that the star-rating system was to be aligned with the Parivesh 1.0 portal, which is a single-window hub for obtaining, monitoring and streamlining various clearance processes. “The functionality was developed on the PARIVESH 1.0 as per the Ministry’s O.M. dated 17/01/2022. Similar functionality was to be developed on PARIVESH 2.0 after revisiting the criteria mentioned in the O.M. dated 17/01/2022,” the environment ministry submitted.
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