Guidelines to be standardised for environmental clearances, says Javadekar

New Delhi: The Environment ministry will soon come up with a set of standard guidelines for giving environmental clearances to real estate sector as a part of its efforts for ease of doing business and making processes simple, Union Minister for Environment and Forests, Prakash Javadekar said on Tuesday. [caption id=“attachment_2725602” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Union Minister Prakash Javadekar. PTI[/caption] “We will publish draft notification which will be indicative as we want public consultation to happen. It will be robust but simple and standardized guidelines for real estate projects,” the Union Environment Minister said during an interactive session with industries organised by industry lobby Ficci. Currently, apart from environment clearance, permission is also required from municipal authority for building residential projects, the minister said. “We studied all the conditions for environmental clearances given in the last 10 years. They are practically the same. So we have standardised the conditions,” Javadekar said. Javadekar said the state governments, which will include those guidelines in their building by-laws, will no longer need to give environment approvals separately. “Real estate sector will not require a separate window for environment clearance in those states which will adopt our standard rules into their building laws and permission rules. This way the plan sanctioning authority will also become environment sanctioning authority if they accept our standard guidelines,” he said.The ministry is also deliberating on introduction of civil penalties for violating environmental clearance rules. “We are also bringing civil penalties. If somebody violates the conditions given in environment clearance or does not take clearance and starts operation, it is all categorised as violation,” he said.