Get realty off green radar, set up regulator

Get realty off green radar, set up regulator
The Times of India, July 3, 2009, Page 22

Team TOI

Controversial regulatory reforms in the environment sector found their way into the Economic Survey too. The report recommended that housing and real estate sector be taken out of the purview of the central environmental clearances regime. It also recommended the creation of an autonomous environmental regulatory authority, which environment and forests minister Jairam Ramesh had made part of his agenda.

Ramesh had earlier said the ministry was considering the creation of an environment protection agency that would subsume the role of the Central Pollution Control Board as well as the ministry’s regulatory sections. The Survey also recommended that degraded forestlands be handed over to the paper industry. The controversial proposal has cropped up several times in the past couple of decades and each time put on the backburner with stiff opposition from several quarters.

In the UPA’s previous tenure too, the idea was floated with the environment ministry proposing leasing government forests to the industry in a PPP model. But the proposal was put off though not completely abandoned. The paper industry has again reached out to the government pushing the idea.

On other environmental concerns, the Survey suggested replacing the use of kerosene in rural India with solar lanterns and cookers in order to reduce the subsidy bill. At the same time, it asked for the creation of a national waste mission. The mission would create a multi-level national sewerage grid and a national solid waste collection and disposal system to run parallel to the attempt to clean water sources.

On depleting water sources, the Survey has given life to the proposal to price water in rural India while providing free or low cost water entitlements to the poor through smart cards, vouchers or bank accounts. The move seconds the suggestion of the Planning Commission which was made in its report in 2008.