Our motto is development without destruction: Prakash Javadekar

Interview with Minister of Environment, Forests and Climate Change

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Prakash Javadekar, the Union minister in charge of environment, forests and climate change, tells Sanjay Jog the idea is to balance the need for ecology protection with promotion of investments. Edited excerpts:

Coastal states are advocating changes in the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) norms. What is the present state of the review launched by your ministry?

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It is true that the government has received proposals and representations from many states for amending the CRZ Notification, 2011. This had envisaged ensuring of livelihood security to coastal communities, to conserve and protect coastal stretches and marine areas, and promote sustainable development on scientific principles taking into account the dangers of natural hazards in these regions.

As of now an elaborate review is on, meant for taking more care of coastal and marine ecology, while allowing reasonable and sustainable development. That is the focus; our motto is development without destruction. The ministry will make a presentation before the prime minister before announcing changes.

Your colleague, minister of ports Nitin Gadkari, recently announced an aim to develop 2,000 river ports and a couple of sea ports.
The review will take care of those proposed projects.

Has your ministry cleared the much-debated Mumbai coastal road and Mumbai Trans Harbour Link projects?
They have already been approved.

What is the timeline to amend green laws?

Earlier, for violation of environment laws, criminal cases used to be filed. The government is contemplating an amendment to also propose civil penalties. The amendments are on the table.

Besides, we are doing our own job to amend green laws.  The TSR Subramanian committee report was one input. A Parliament standing committee gave inputs. The ministry will take into account all inputs and propose amendments.

What initiatives are being taken by the ministry for ease of doing business?

The success of the Modi government and our team is that we have been able to put everything into motion and provide ease of doing responsible business. I mean sustainable business practices, caring about nature. The average period required during the earlier government for environment clearance was 600 days and this has been brought down to 190 days. It will be further reduced to 100 days.

The ministry has started an online process; every fortnight, a review is held about what is pending and at what stage. Thereafter, corrections are carried out in processes. Essentially, processes have been made transparent, simple.

Further, the ministry has standardised the terms of reference (ToR), as it used to take 12 to 13 months. That has reduced to one month for granting ToRs.

Up to 40 hectares of forest diversion proposals are dealt by regional centres, with partnership of states. Due to standardisation efforts, the ministry was able to remove unnecessary delays, without compromising on environmental conditions. In the real estate sector, too, the ministry has taken a decision to standardise processes.