New Delhi – India’s environment minister Prakash Javadekar on Monday said that the government’s mandate was to foster growth while striking a balance with environment protection.
Javadekar was speaking at inaugural session of the 15th National Convention on ‘‘Housing for All By 2022’’ in New Delhi.
The government is working towards making rules simpler and fewer with strict implementation with a focus on promoting ease of doing “responsible” business.
The minister spoke at length on a range of issues related to environment approvals for building and construction projects.
Environment approvals used to be a stumbling block before 2014, the minister said adding that the governmnet have now simplified the rules.
“Before 2014, it used to take 640 days for a proposal to get environment approval but we have simplified rules and now it takes 108 days for the same and very soon it will be further brought down to 60 days but at the same time without compromising on environment protection”, the union minister said.
“Earlier projects above 50,000 sqm used to be under the purview of centre but now even projects above 1.5 lakh sqm and delegated to states”, Javadekar said.
