The move to ease diversion of forest land for industrial use by the Prime Minister’s Office faces further delay as the ministries of tribal affairs and environment want more time for consultations. A panel headed by principal secretary to the prime minister, Pulok Chatterjee, had decided to dilute the requirement of taking consent from the affected tribal population before diverting forest land. The committee, which submitted its report on December 12, included top officials from tribal affairs and environment ministries.

The recommendations for all practical purposes allow the forest clearance process to bypass the gram sabhas, or village assemblies, which are the basic units for the implementation of the Forest Rights Act.

The woes of investors in highway projects don't seem to end. The new guidelines issued by the environment ministry, allowing work on non-forest land while clearance for projects involving diversion of forest land is pending, are cumbersome and would not facilitate investments, developers feel.

According to official sources, the developers have written to the environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan, roads minister CP Joshi, NHAI Chairman RP Singh and the department of economic affairs in finance ministry, stating that the condition that in order to begin work in non-forest land, the user agency must explicitly provide for a “technically feasible alternative alignment” for segments that fall in forest land is too difficult to be complied with.

In a bid to speed up infrastructure projects, the Prime Minister’s Office is said to have asked the Ministry of Tribal Affairs and the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) to issue fresh directions to facilitate ‘unconditional forest clearance’ waiving off the requirement for gram sabha nod for linear projects, small public utility projects and projects that do not ‘substantially’ affect the quality of the life of people.

While the PMO has been asking the MoEF for the last few months to examine ways to expedite the method of granting forest and environment clearance, in a meeting held on December 12, 2012, it was decided that the Ministry of Tribal Affairs will have to relax its guidelines. Both ministries are yet to issue any fresh circular.

The Bombay High Court has rejected a plea by City and Industrial Development Corporation (Cidco), the nodal agency for the proposed Navi Mumbai International Airport, to exempt the airport project

Tribal minister says he hasn’t seen the report on this, though his own secretary is a signatory

A panel set up by the Prime Minister’s Office to review the mechanism for forest clearances in industrial projects has suggested replacing the need for approval from the relevant gram sabha with state government “certificates’’. Tribal Affairs Minister Kishore Chandra Deo says he has yet to see the report, which in effect asks for disregarding the Forest Rights Act (FRA), which he has been championing.

New Delhi: The joint stand that environment ministry and the tribal affairs ministry take in the critical Vedanta bauxite mining case in the Supreme Court on Monday is set to decide the fate of hun

The National Highways Authority of India has asked the environment ministry to clear 25 road projects that are stuck for want of approvals.

Delhi-Ludhiana expressway talks begin, states express in-principle approval

With the Prime Minister’s Office stepping in to resolve the row between the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) over forest clearances to highway projects, the former has communicated the ball is now in the latter’s court. Senior officials in the NHAI and the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways said the highway authority maintained its stand and had communicated this to the MoEF and the PMO.

Stepping in to resolve the row between the National Highways Authority of India and the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) over forest clearance to linear projects, the Prime Minister’s Office Tuesday worked out a formula to end the embarrassing stand-off between two arms of the central government.

A meeting called by the PMO decided the MoEF will submit a clarification delinking environmental clearance from forest clearance for linear projects following which NHAI will withdraw its court case against the ministry, highly placed sources said.

Tata Steel has been asked by the Ministry of Environment and Forests panel to get forest clearances prior to seeking environment nod for its coal mining project in Jharkhand.