At a closed-door meeting on January 5, 2017, Environment Minister Anil Madhav Dave, urged the non-official expert members of the Environment Ministry's appraisal committees to not delay project clearances by repeatedly asking for different studies.
These 40 expert members who were invited for an ‘interaction and lunch' by the environment ministry, were advised to work harder in order to clear the pending processes over the following three months.
According to expert members present at the meeting, Dave in his 45 minute address, spoke of his party's vision and contribution before propounding the directions that members ought to follow to assess projects speedily.
The minister also warned the expert members to be wary of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) funded by foreign interests claiming that they do not hold India's development to be of primary importance. Dave reiterated that no compromise be made on ease of doing business, as it is the key goal of the government.
Dave, to make his point, resorted to the ‘soldier argument', and questioned the legitimacy of environmental concerns. “He asked if we should bother about cutting trees when soldiers were dying on the border." revealed one of the experts present at the meeting.
In its first two years, the Narendra Modi government cleared over 2000 projects requiring investment of more than Rs 10 lakh crore. The period for project approval which was 600 days during the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, was reduced to 190 days in 2016. The Modi government aims to further bring down the approval period to 100 days.
Source: The Indian Express
