CM seeks early environmental clearances

After announcing projects worth Rs 6.48 lakh crore in the recently concluded Partnership Summit, chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy has got down to the primary task of securing timely clearances for these projects to ensure that the conversion rate of the MoUs are at a respectable level.

As a first step, the chief minister on Tuesday requested the Centre to grant environmental clearances for the projects announced during the Partnership Summit at the earliest.

In a letter addressed to the Prime Minister ahead of his visit to Delhi on Tuesday, Reddy requested Manmohan Singh to advise the ministry to issue environmental clearances to the projects expeditiously.

He also sought the allocation of natural gas for the gas-based power projects proposed with massive additional capacities in the state.

Announcement of huge investments through signing of MoUs has now become a competition of sorts with every other state trying to break the record of the other. However, conversion of these intents into real projects has been under 20 per cent even in investor-friendly states like Gujarat, according to officials.

Faced with similar questions at the event, the chief minister said he would monitor the progress of these projects on a monthly basis. While the facilitation of projects by providing basic infrastructure, land and other necessary permission at the state level itself is a time taking process often involving bureaucratic delays, environmental approvals from the Centre have also become equally challenging, the officials said.

However, requirement for acquisition of land for these projects by the government is minimal as most of these units are coming up in the existing large private industrial parks or the companies themselves had bought the land, according to them.