Forest, wildlife nod biggest hurdle for border roads:Par panel

New Delhi, Aug 22 (PTI) Delay in forest and wildlife
clearances was "the biggest stumbling block" for Sino-Indian
border roads with time over-runs exceeding nine years, an
Indian parliamentary committee has said.
In a report on Border Roads presented to Indian
Parliament this week, the Standing Committee on Defence said
Forest Ministry's approval for 19 Sino-Indian Border Roads
(SIBR) out of 109 projects were still pending and in non-SIBR
cases, 138 proposals were yet to be cleared.
The committee noted that while border roads required no
clearance under the Environment Protection Act, approvals
under Forest Conservation Rules and Wildlife Protection Act
were necessary.
It said under the Forest Conservation Rules, clear time
lines of 90 days for state governments and 60 days for central
government had been prescribed, both compressed to 30 days for
roads and infrastructure along the Sino-Indian borders and
projects of national importance.
"In spite of the clear cut time frame provided under the
rules, the forest and wildlife clearances have been the
biggest stumbling block for construction of roads and other
infrastructure development in border areas as observed by the
committee during the study visit," the report said.
"The average time taken is two to three years and in
certain cases eight to nine years have been taken for such
clearances," it added.
Though the Defence and Environment and Forest Ministries
were seized of the matter and steps taken to streamline the
clearances, the committee noted that the real issue was
"enforcement of various decisions" taken by the government.
Among the steps it mentioned were simplifying and design
integrated form for application for clearances, single window
system at Ministry, state forest department headquarters and
district forest office levels, and processing of applications
for forest and wildlife approvals simultaneously.
"A proposal was made to have a nodal officer at the state
level in the Defence and Environment and Forest Ministries and
that a checklist provided to them clearly delineating
responsibility on time lines," it said.
The committee said the proposal merit consideration and
asked the two ministries to take a quick decision on it.
It also desired strict compliance to compressed time
lines for clearances besides fixing accountability at all
levels so that the stipulated time frame was maintained.
The committee noted with surprise that in the case of
wildlife clearances there were no time lines prescribed.
However there was an empowered committee constituted by the
Supreme Court that addressed some questions on the subject.
It also said the Army had approached the apex court
seeking an order that for roads falling within 50 km of the
border, no wildlife clearance be dispensed with. This Army
plea is now under the court's consideration. PTI NCB
MRD