New Delhi, Nov 14 With the objective of enhancing ease of doing business, the government has accepted the long-standing demand of industry to remove dual compliance of Environmental Clearance (EC) and Consent to Establish (CTE) for setting up of new industries, an official said on Thursday.
Now, non-polluting white category industries will not be required to take CTE or Consent to Operate (CTO) at all. The industries which have taken EC will not be required to take CTE, said a statement.
This will not only reduce compliance burden but also prevent duplication of approvals. Notifications to this effect have been issued by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) under the Air Act and Water Act.
The notification effectively integrates these two approvals and a Standard of Procedure has also been issued in this regard to take into account the issues considered during the CTE process, in the EC itself.
State Pollution Control Boards will be consulted during the EC process. Further, the CTE fee shall be required to be paid by the industry, so that there is no loss of revenue to the states.
Earlier, Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav chaired 4th meeting of the Apex Committee of the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) on the occasion of Swachh Vayu Diwas (International Day of Clean Air for blue skies) in Jaipur in September and reviewed the implementation of National, State and City clean air action plans implemented in 24 States/UTs and 131 cities.
Under this programme, a performance-based grant of Rs 19,612 crore has been allocated to 131 cities for the implementation of city action plans from the years 2019-20 to 2025-26.
So far Rs 11,211 crore has been provided to these cities to achieve the targets of 40 per cent reduction or achieving National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) in PM10 levels by 2025-26.
Air quality improvement activities undertaken in 131 cities in sectors of road dust, vehicular pollution, waste management, greening of urban spaces and industrial pollution were presented in the meeting.
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