Nath for faster green clearances; says not in clash with anyone

I / New York April 08, 2010, 11:46 IST

Clearing the air on the rift with the environment ministry over highway projects, Road Transport Minister Kamal Nath has said he has no 'clash' with anyone but the green approvals should be expedited.

"I have clash with nobody. This is a national programme. There are procedures for this. Nobody can go beyond it and nobody can circumvent it," Nath told PTI yesterday in reply to a query on the differences between his ministry and the environment ministry in the recent weeks over clearances to highway projects.

"These procedures which are there were brought in when I was environment minister. The size has increased. We have to build capacities to see there are no delays," he added.

Nath is in New York attending several meetings, including McGraw-Hill Construction, which is one of the largest construction industry events.

Last month, Nath had reportedly written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh saying that the progress of highway construction is being blocked by the environment ministry.

Denying the charge that his ministry was blocking national highway projects, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh last week said that "Ministry of Environment and Forests has cleared 98 per cent national highway projects, only those cases where the project passes through tiger corridor or dense forest area we have not approved".

Nath said that out of the vast majority of roads being built only about 100 kilometers of road needed clearance. The environment ministry would have to develop a strategy to better respond to the fast pace of the ongoing development.

The minister said that different approaches needed to be taken while considering an environmental clearance for an existing road to which a lane needed to be added, as opposed to an environment clearance for a road around a national park or sanctuary.

"What concerns me is that with the quantum jump the process will have to be expedited," he said. "It's not that the process will have to be short-circuited but you need to have that much capacity to also examine it with the huge amount of projects."

"That has to be built up in the environment ministry by a process," Nath added.