Lavasa will replace Rajan Watal, who retires on Saturday, even as the budgetary process is yet to be finally completed.
'It is also being done in violation of our Forest Tribal Act because it will involve the eviction of the tribals living in these forests.'
Prakash Javadekar set a scorching pace of changes in the environment ministry during his two-year tenure. He has the talent to calm ruffled feathers in the education sector, while proceeding with the government's agenda in this space.
The draft environment impact assessment (EIA) notification, 2020, which involves the procedure of issuing environmental clearances to various projects, was issued by the Environment Ministry in March this year and has received thousands of suggestions from the public.
It has been a turnaround for Javadekar, who was earlier stripped of the charge of two key departments of Information and Broadcasting and Parliamentary Affairs as a minister of state.
The environment ministry has objected to the fact that around 115 hectares (or 7.3 per cent) of total land for the project is mangrove forest. It recently conveyed this to both Cidco and the civil aviation ministry. The matter is now with the prime minister's office. Cidco Vice-Chairman and Managing Director GS Gill said the corporation had sought an appointment with the environment ministry officials to make another presentation on the project in the next 10 days.
The Rs 4,675-crore Navi Mumbai airport project, which is being developed by CIDCO, may be delayed by a few months in the wake of serious objections being raised by the environment ministry. The project that has Cabinet clearance and approval from the International Civil Aviation Organisation will now be taken to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for final clearance since the environment ministry has raised issues relating to the site.
Environment ministry also plans to cut the two-stage mandatory clearances under the Environment Protection Act to a single stage, shaving six months from the process.
The environment ministry has proposed to offer wasteland available with it to investors through multi-stakeholder partnership.
The pacts were signed by Finance Minister P Chidambaram and German Development Minister Gerd Mller.
Top officials of the environment ministry, Delhi Development Authority and municipal commissioners also stayed away from the deliberations.
The elephant had died on May 27 after she ate the pineapple stuffed with crackers and forest officials said that it died standing in river Velliyar after it suffered an injury in its lower jaw.
In his address to the nation from Red Fort on Independence Day, Prime Minister Modi had given a clarion call to free India from single-use plastic.
PMO's stance came as part of a reply to the whistle-blower forest officer, Sanjiv Chaturvedi, after he dragged the PMO to the Central Information Commission for denying information under the RTI Act.
Of these, 14 have received environmental clearances and four forestry clearances.
Amidst controversy on the issue of import of genetically modified foods, an inter-ministerial meeting is being held on Wednesday to discuss the policy on GM foods and crop, including their import.\n\n\n\n
'We have been appealing to various governments for so many years that there should be no dams in the Himalayas, but no one listens.' 'Nature responded in its own way.'
Forest law vests overall control over the productive assets of the jungles in the forest bureaucracy.
The defence ministry need not come to the Centre to get green clearances for constructing border roads and strategically important projects coming within 100 kms of the Line of Actual Control, the environment ministry said on Thursday.
The panel, however, set some conditions for the company, including that Cairn India will have to upload the status of environment compliance, including results of monitored data, on its website and update it periodically.
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Earlier, a high-level Environment Ministry panel -- the Expert Appraisal Committee for Building Construction, Coastal Regulation Zone, Infrastructure Development and Miscellaneous projects -- had recommended the project.
"We can find a solution to keep everyone happy," he said.
The advisory body had not met for the past three years.
The environment ministry has rejected the Navy's proposal to set up a missile testing site at Tillanchong Sanctuary in Andaman and Nicobar islands, saying the firing range would destroy the habitat of endangered bird species Nicobar Megapode.
Maharashtra SEZ act yet to be notified.
The environment ministry was ready to take a re-look into the "safety" aspects of the Kudankulam nuclear plant in Tamil Nadu if such a need arises, Union Minister Jayanti Natarajan said on Friday. The environment minister's statement came a day after the Supreme Court made it clear that it can stop commissioning of the controversial Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant if it finds that the mandatory safety requirements for it have not been put in place.
The environment clearance granted to Posco's mega steel project in Orissa in January 2011 will remain suspended till the environment ministry reviews it afresh.
Union Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma has protested, on behalf of the corporate sector, against the Union environment and forests ministry's 'unreasonable environment regulations' being clamped on the industrial projects.
The immediate trigger is the environment ministry's latest policy of asking corporates to mandatorily commit five per cent of project investments in environment protection measures.
Rules for mining, roads, power and irrigation projects relaxed.
A year after Jairam Ramesh's final environmental clearance, Korean giant waits for state govt to hand over land.
Earlier, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy inaugurated the summit which was attended by Mayors and other delegates from various cities world over.
Accusing the Congress of playing vote bank politics, Bharatiya Janata Party prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Sunday attacked Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde over his proposal to state governments to review terror cases against members of the minority community.
Many government departments, including Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority, Revenue and Forest, Brihanmumbai Municipal Commission, Home, Environment Ministry, Public Works Department and Uran Land department, were issued summons directing them to produce before the commission, all documents pertaining to the scam-hit Adarsh Society on Monday. However, except BMC, all the departments sought one week's time to submit all the files along with an index.
SC agreed that if they were forced to seek clearances from the ministry of environment and forest, their projects will get delayed
Seeks talks after court battle lost.
Wants another committee to review adverse report of experts against 6 dams
Pakistani intelligence agencies have seized the records of two federal ministries to investigate an alleged institutional lapse in objecting to "Indian aggression" on sharing of river waters and securing international carbon credits on disputed hydropower projects, a media claimed on Saturday.
Controversial Jairam Ramesh was on Tuesday elevated to Cabinet status and shifted from the high-profile Environment Ministry and Veerappa Moily replaced by Salman Khursheed as Law Minister in a substantive reshuffle of the Union Council of Ministers, in which several ministers continued to hold additional charge of some key portfolios.
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