National Board for Wildlife soon: Javadekar

In a meeting of various ministries, Piyush Goyal assured of a speedy auction of coal blocks for the steel industry separately

Union Minister for Environment Prakash Javadekar assured speedy reconstitution of the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL), in a meeting with other ministries in New Delhi on Tuesday.

NBWL, a statutory body under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, which oversees implementation of wildlife laws, is waiting to be reconstituted by the National Democratic Alliance government and as a result, around 100 projects are pending for environment clearance.

Along with Javadekar, the meeting was attended by Narendra Singh Tomar, Minister of Mines, Steel, and Labour and Employment and Piyush Goyal, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Power and Coal.

Goyal assured of a speedy auction of coal blocks for the steel industry separately. "Action will also soon be taken to increase the capacity of washeries in the Jharia Coal Fields so as to improve the supply of coking coal to the steel industry," said a press release by the Minister of Mines.

Matter pertaining to giving environment clearance for mineral leases of less than five hectare area was also discussed in the meeting. The environment minister had in December last year announced that environmental clearances are not required for riverbed sand mining projects with areas below five hectares. However, this contradicted a Supreme Court order which had said that such leases should be granted by the states only after getting environmental clearance from the ministry.

"It was decided that the Ministry of Environment & Forests will scrutinize the rules promulgated by State Governments concerning this matter to verify their adequacy as far as environmental protection is concerned and the applicability of the environment clearance notification will be removed in all cases where the State Governments have been found to have issued rules that provide adequately for environment protection," said the press statement.