MoEF to seek compliance reports on big ticket projects

The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change is set to seek compliance reports from the state governments to check whether major infrastructure projects taken up inside protected areas comply with the conditions stipulated while issuing clearance.

As per the law, the National Board of Wildlife (NBWL) reviews all proposals to take up development works inside the sanctuaries and grants clearance by imposing conditions, many of which act as mitigation measures.

However, there is no monitoring mechanism to check whether these conditions are complied with.

During the 84th meeting of the NBWL standing committee, member of the Board H S Singh noted that the absence of a monitoring system has been “discussed repeatedly” over the last five years.

“However, members are unaware of how many such proposals have actually been monitored. There is a pressing need to ensure systematic monitoring of major projects such as mining, industrial and linear infrastructure to uphold the objectives of wildlife conservation,” he said.

Singh suggested that the chief wildlife wardens should submit compliance certificates for all the major projects. He noted that only about 10 big-ticket proposals have been cleared by the NBWL in the last two years.

“If the chief wildlife warden is unable to submit compliance certificates for such a small number of projects, the proposals from those states should not be considered in future. The standing committee should not be liberal to in such cases,” he said.

The committee decided to circulate a proforma suggested by Singh and to seek compliance reports for projects like highways, railways, transmission lines, mining and place the compliance report at its next meeting.