'Green' light to industry: Govt caps CER expense for projects seeking nod

In the name of Corporate Environment Responsibility, smaller projects will pay more as a percentage of their capex than bigger ones

In a relief to industry, the Union government has imposed a cap on the money that companies have to mandatorily spend on social development of the region where they install projects after seeking environmental clearance.

So far, experts in the Union environment, forests & climate change ministry imposed financial obligation on companies for social development of project-impacted regions on a case-to-case basis. They assessed the number of impacted people and habitations, and the degree to which the impact would spread, before asking a developer to pay for providing infrastructure in and around the project. The government terms this ‘Corporate Environment Responsibility’.

The