To speed up projects,communicate better,panel tells forest ministry

Delays in environmental nod,land acquisition main reasons behind time overruns.

Concerned over the huge delays in execution of core sector projects,an internal panel of the ministry of statistics and programme implementation (MoSPI) has called for better communication between the project authorities and the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF).

The ministry,which is the nodal agency for monitoring the implementation of infrastructure projects in the country,had last year set up an internal committee headed by its additional secretary Pankaj Jain to study the reasons for cost and time overruns in most of these projects.

The committee has found that delays in environmental clearance and land acquisition are two of the main reasons behind time overruns in most core sector projects, the countrys chief statistician,TCA Anant told

The Indian Express.

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The panel,which is expected to submit its report next month,has found that delays in environment approvals are largely due to a lack of communication between the implementing ministry and the MoEF.

If the project authority can know about the requirements for environment clearance beforehand and can file for them in advance,many projects would not face such huge delays, Anant said.

The panel has advocated that the MoEF should provide conditional approvals to infrastructure projects and should also put in place a strong monitoring mechanism to ensure they dont violate norms.

The whole aim should be that environmental concerns are addressed but at the same time development does not suffer, a ministry official explained.

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The ministry is now planning a national consultation on the issue in March,where it will bring together officials from infrastructure ministries,the MoEF and project executors. In recent months,most infrastructure ministries have taken an adversarial stance against the MoEF. We want to bring them together and make them discuss measures that can prevent such delays, the official said.

Delays in environment clearances have been plaguing a host of core sector infrastructure projects,most notably in sectors of mining,power and roads. The tough position taken by the MoEF in recent months has scuttled the plans for many big ticket ventures such as Vedanta Resources mining plant in the Niyamgiri hills in Orissa and the POSCO iron and steel project in Jagatsinhpur,Orissa. A number of ultra-mega power projects in Orissa and Chhattisgarh are also stuck due to a lack of environment clearances.

Further,nearly 203 coal blocks with combined reserves of 600 million tonnes and linked power projects of over 50,000 Mw capacity have been stuck due to the no-go criterion for mining activities that is being formulated by the MoEF.

Data available with the ministry reveals that of the 600 core sector projects costing above Rs 150 crore,306 projects are facing time over runs ranging between 1 month to 225 months. In fact,32 of these projects have been delayed for more than five years.