Ministry to extend validity of green nod for projects delayed due to court cases

The Union Environment Ministry has liberalised the process of granting environmental clearances to projects that get delayed due to court cases. Henceforth, the period during which a project remains sub judice will be treated as “zero period”.

The government cited additional delays as the validity of environmental clearance often gets over by the time cases are settled in court as the rationale behind the move.

The term ‘validity of environmental clearance’ means the period within which the project proponent attains commencement of production operations or completion of all construction operations in case of construction projects.

The ministry, in a clarification note, said, “Instances have been brought to the notice of the ministry when the implementation of the environmental clearances granted to projects or activities have been stalled due to proceedings before the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) or various courts. These proceedings often take significant time to get resolved and are not in the control of the project proponent.”

“As a result of these proceedings, either the validity of the environmental clearance gets expired or the project proponent is left with a reduced duration for commencement of production operations and completion of all construction operations,” it added.

As per the provisions of the Environment Impact Assessment, if a project or activity fails to start production operations or complete construction operations within the validity of the environmental clearance, the project proponent has to apply again for environmental clearance.

“In this regard, the ministry hereby clarifies that the following time period during which the project proponent was unable to implement the environmental clearance granted for the related project/activities shall be treated as ‘zero period’ for calculating the validity of the environmental clearance,” said the ministry.

The ministry has clarified that in the event that the period lost in litigation or in NCLT proceedings is more than three years, the concerned state pollution control board should add appropriate environmental safeguards, as deemed appropriate, in the Consent to Operate (CTO) conditions.