Govt begins steps to implement environ panel recommendations

Environment Ministry has initiated steps to implement some of the key recommendations made by a high-level committee constituted by it to review laws related to forests, wildlife, water and air.
Sources said the ministry has decided to carry out the process for selection of a technical consultant, for supporting the ministry in implementation of the "agreed recommendations" by the panel headed by former cabinet secretary T S R Subramanian.
The committee, which reviewed the green laws, has made important observations and 55 recommendations.
According to the ministry, the important among them outline that the present set up is not structured to make a coordinated attack on the pollutants which debase the air, water, and the land.

"Despite its complexity, for pollution control purposes the environment must be perceived as a single, interrelated system," said the Ministry emphasising the need for constituting National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) as recommended by the panel.
The ministry felt the proposed NEMA would be an effective approach to pollution control which include identify pollutants, trace them through the entire ecological chain, determine the total exposure of man and his environment, examine interactions among forms of pollution and identify where in the ecological chain interdiction would be most appropriate.

Officials said the functions carried out under various legislations including Water Act, 1974, Air Act 1981, Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, the functions carried out in relation to Solid Waste Management and authority to perform studies relating to ecological systems could be subsumed in the proposed body -- NEMA.

The panel has also envisaged a similar institution with "corresponding functions" at the state level in the name of State Environment Management Authority (SEMA).
Proposed roles and functions of the NEMA and SEMA include the establishment and enforcement of environmental protection standards consistent with national environmental goals, make objective and scientific recommendations on grant of environment clearance and establish a mechanism for monitoring of compliances of conditions given in environment clearance.