In a letter to Environment and Forest Minister Jayanthi Natarajan, Commerce and industry Minister Anand Sharma has also suggested roll-back of a recent policy circular which prohibits the industry to seek environmental clearances moving along with the progress of the project.
"The recent policy circular issued by your ministry states that environment clearances need to follow a sequential order rather than proceed parallely as was done earlier," Sharma said.
He said this would lead to enormous delays in crucial projects, especially in the core sector of economy, with a cascading impact on growth of infrastructure in the country.
Sharma opposed the environment ministry insisting on industry to earmark 5 per cent of investment for corporate environmental responsibilities.
He said it was "clearly beyond the remit of the (environment) ministry. Even a CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) agenda is administered voluntarily and not to be mandated by government". Read the full report here.
Source: MSN News, New Delhi.
