To speed up infra projects, stay out of wildlife clearance, Govt tells Supreme Court

The Indian Express, 12 April, 2015

The Environment Ministry has approached the Supreme Court to free the process of wildlife clearance for infrastructure projects from the apex court’s monitoring, citing delays due to the “extremely convoluted and timeconsuming” procedure.

The ministry’s Interlocutory Application(IA), signed on April 9, comes nine months after it was first urged by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to “approach the SC to allow state and national boards for wildlife to grant clearance” because of the “huge pendency of infrastructureprojects”.

This move was originally prioritised as an action point at a meeting chaired by Nripendra Misra, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, on July 12 2014.

Subsequently, the issue was taken up a number of timesin review meetings chaired by Misra and in weekly meetings of the government’s ProjectMonitoring Group.

According to Supreme Court orders on November 13, 2000 and May 9, 2002, landin a sanctuary or national park cannot be diverted or non-forest activities undertaken without the court’s specific approval.

In its appeal, the government prayed that both orders be vacated and the decision-making process be permitted to “take place in accordance with the statutory provisions”.

Documents examined by The Indian Express show that the ministry’s appeal appears to have quoted verbatim from the conclusions of the July 12meeting.

Both noted: “The present process for getting wildlife clearance has become extremely convoluted and time consuming as every user agency has to approach local authorities, chief wildlife warden, State Boardfor Wildlife (SBWL), the standing committee of National Boardfor Wildlife (NBWL) and then to seekspecific permission of this Hon’ble Court.”

Claiming that this processhas been causing “time overruns resulting in costescalations”, the appeal lists six such public sectorprojects that suffered delays between 19 to 66 months.

The government’s other argument seekingvacation of the SC orders is that “adequate safeguards are now availableunderthe statutory provisions” of the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972, following an amendment in 2003.

Before the amendment, any alteration of sanctuary or national park boundaries was decided by the legislature of the state concerned. The appeal claimed that “the court’s objective has been complied with in the amendment” that made consultation with SBWL for sanctuaries and the NBWL for national parks mandatory.

Over two decades, the SC has passed a number of orders to monitor the functioning of the executive in relation to the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972.

On November 13 2000, the court directed that “no de-reservation of forest/ sanctuaries/ national parks shall be effected” following which the governmentstarted submitting allsuch proposals for the court’s approval.

On May 9 2002, the court ordered that allproposals of non-forest activities insidesanctuaries be placed before the standing committee of the NBWL (then IndianBoard for Wildlife) for its recommendations before the court’s approval was sought.