Only 20% of projects submitting biannual compliance report in Delhi
SEIAA says not submitting report means projects may not be meeting the environmental clearance conditions
Only 20% of all recent projects, which were awarded environmental clearances in Delhi till March last year, have managed to submit a six-monthly compliance report, Delhi’s State Environmental Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA) has observed in its latest meeting.
SEIAA said only five out of 25 projects, which have been awarded clearances in the last two years, submitted a mandatory compliance report on the Union environment ministry’s portal, Parivesh. Skipping this step meant that the projects may not be meeting the environmental clearance conditions, it said.
“There are only five projects which have uploaded their six-monthly compliance reports on the Parivesh portal, out of the 25 environmental clearances awarded by the present SEIAA till March 2023. For this, the project proponents were supposed to submit compliance reports by June 1, 2023. This may be brought to the notice of the regional office of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change,” said SEIAA in its latest meeting held on November 16, the minutes of which have recently been made public.
An environmental clearance, awarded by SEIAA, is required for any construction project to proceed in the city. The environmental clearance conditions laid down often focus on parameters such as water procurement for the site – both during and post construction, solid waste management plans, power requirement, parking details, eco-sensitive areas nearby and number of trees required to be felled.
In the meetings held on November 7 and November 16, the body flagged the problem of projects possibly not meeting environmental norms after being awarded the clearance. SEIAA said at present, there was no mechanism or a body to check whether project proponents were indeed complying with the environmental clearance conditions, which could be detrimental to Delhi’s air quality.
In the latest minutes of meeting, it said the mandate of checks post awarding of environmental clearances lay with the Union environment ministry, based on an environmental impact assessment notification issued in 2006.