Under pressure from large corporate houses, environment minister Jairam Ramesh admits his ministry is in the process of reviewing all the major environmental laws of the country.
Amongst the laws set to be modified are those that deal with solid waste management, air pollution and on the imposition of a ban on plastic waste. The most tricky law deals with the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) policy on the use of forest and revenue land.
With corporate houses pressing for speedy expediting of clearances, the MoEF is planning a major shift by allowing them to afforest degraded forest land rather than revenue (forest) land as is the present practise.
“India presently has 70 million hectares of forest land from which 28 million is degraded with no green cover. We want to pass a law whereby industry can reforest this land with a clear understanding that the ownership and produce of these waste lands does not pass on in the hands of the industry,” said the minister.
The minister pointed out that India is presently generating six million tones of waste per day but has a capacity to dispose off only 1.5 million tones. In order to enhance waste disposal capacity, the ministry is now facilitating public private partnerships for future projects.
“We have 25 such plants (solid waste disposal) and are adding another eight more in the public and private partnership mode. Three plants converting waste into energy are also being set up by GMAR and the Jindal group,” he said.
Nor was the minister in favour of imposing a complete ban on plastic as had been done by the state of Himachal Pradesh and the temple city of Tirupati. “Plastic waste management is labour intensive. India cannot afford to take the position where the use of plastic is banned completely,” he said.
Commenting on the increasing uncertainty around the globe on the whole CDM issue, the minister revealed that Japan had approached them to enter into bilateral ties. This would see the ministry facilitate the setting up of market based institutions for its implementation.
“Market based institutions to monitor air pollution are already being set up in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. These will work along with the existing state pollution boards,” he revealed.
Another recently amended law has been CRZ 2011 where the no-development zone all over India has shrunk from 200 to 100 metres to allow power plants to be located along the coast line.
Industry heads, led by Harshpati Singhania, president of FICCI, have been demanding different compliance standards for large and small and medium industry. “The scale and magnitude of large projects have not been seen in the country before and different rules to prevent cost over runs are required to deal with them,” Mr Singhania explained.