The Environment Ministry has lifted its January-2010 moratorium on environmental clearance for new projects and expansion in eight critically polluted areas, including Ludhiana in Punjab.

Based on recommendations received from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the moratorium has been lifted in Ludhiana (Punjab), Varanasi-Mirzapur (UP), Agra (UP), Bhavnagar (Gujarat), Cuddalore (Tamil

The Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF),currently under attack for being allegedly too rigid in providing clearances to projects, has lifted an earlier moratorium in this regard on eight more critically polluted areas.

However, the MoEF has indicated that the respective state governments and pollution control boards need to adhere to strict implementation of action plan to contain pollut

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The 88 industrial clusters identified by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) will be re-verified for the amount of pollution they generate, on the basis of which they will be re-rated.

The Uttar Pradesh government has decided not to consider new development projects for Ghaziabad, Kanpur, Singrauli, Noida, Agra and Varanasi-Mirzapur for the next eight months following directions from the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF).

The Centre on Wednesday decided that it would not consider any development project proposed in the country's top 43 identified 'critically-polluted' industrial clusters and pending with it for an environment clearance for the next eight months.

2 Gujarat clusters top the PCB pollution list.

Ankleshwar in Gujarat topped the list with a CEPI score of 88.5, followed by Vapi (88.09), Ghaziabad (87.37) and Chandrapur (83.88).

The Comprehensive Environmental Pollution Index (CEPI) of the Central Pollution Control Board has found that the Greater Cochin industrial cluster area is critically polluted.