Behind Closed Doors: Ministries Unite to Bypass Environment Laws

Environment and Urban development ministries collaborated to bypass legal barriers for environmental clearance.

In the name of “ease of doing business,” the government is looking to do away with environmental clearances for the real estate sector. These measures would help facilitate housing for the poor, the environment ministry told Business Standard.

But in doing so, the government would bypass both the Environmental Protection Act of 1986 as well as the Environment Impact Assessment Notification of 2006. Existing regulations require the environment impact assessment for buildings larger than 20,000 square metres. The newly proposed plan, however, would weave environmental conditions into building permits.

Documents show that the two ministries involved, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) and the Ministry of Urban Development, consulted one another to develop this plan.

This will mean no construction project can be ever stopped or rejected on environmental grounds. Since there will be no environment clearance under the Environment Protection Act, the projects cannot be challenged before the National Green Tribunal which doesn’t have jurisdiction over the state building by-laws.

Ritwick Dutta, Environmental Lawyer, told Hindustan Times

Though the environment ministry only just released a draft notification for public comment, as required by law, the urban planning ministry changed its building by-laws months ago.

In these by-laws, released in March, compliance to environmental conditions in construction would occur at the local and state level, rather than at the national level. The Delhi Development Authority has already incorporated these changes, even though the new regulation has not been passed by the environment ministry.

In exchanges between the urban planning and environment ministries, it is clear that the environment ministry has planned to make these changes for a while, though the ministry waited for months before putting up a draft for public comments. Last February, Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu wrote to the then-environment minister Prakash Javadekar.

My ministry supported the proposed framework for integrating environmental clearances with the permission to construct buildings. It is hoped that this will immensely help real estate business as a landmark step in ease of doing business by ensuring the environmental concerns related to construction of buildings.

M Venkaiah Naidu to Prakash Javadekar 

Both ministries exchanged a number of letters in the months that followed. The idea to “dispense” with environment clearances came from the environment ministry.

Though the government said existing regulations were being altered to facilitate the ‘Housing for All by 2022’ scheme, Business Standard’s Nitin Sethi pointed out that the regulations would also apply to malls, commercial buildings and entertainment centres.

These changes are the third in a set of regulatory changes proposed by the environment ministry that both decentralise government responsibility and work around environmental assessments.

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