Delay in forest and wildlife clearances was "the biggest stumbling block" for Sino-Indian border roads with time over-runs exceeding nine years, an Indian parliamentary committee has said.
In a report on Border Roads presented to Indian Parliament this week, the Standing Committee on Defence said Forest Ministry's approval for 19 Sino-Indian Border Roads (SIBR) out of 109 projects were still pending and in non-SIBR cases, 138 proposals were yet to be cleared.
The committee noted that while border roads required no clearance under the Environment Protection Act, approvals under Forest Conservation Rules and Wildlife Protection Act
were necessary.
It said under the Forest Conservation Rules, clear time lines of 90 days for state governments and 60 days for central government had been prescribed, both compressed to 30 days for roads and infrastructure along the Sino-Indian borders and projects of national importance.
"In spite of the clear cut time frame provided under the rules, the forest and wildlife clearances have been the biggest stumbling block for construction of roads and other infrastructure development in border areas as observed by the committee during the study visit," the report said.
"The average time taken is two to three years and in certain cases eight to nine years have been taken for such clearances," it added.
Though the Defence and Environment and Forest Ministries were seized of the matter and steps taken to streamline the clearances, the committee noted that the real issue was "enforcement of various decisions" taken by the government. Among the steps it mentioned were simplifying and design integrated form for application for clearances, single window system at Ministry, state forest department headquarters and district forest office levels, and processing of applications for forest and wildlife approvals simultaneously.
"A proposal was made to have a nodal officer at the state level in the Defence and Environment and Forest Ministries and that a checklist provided to them clearly delineating
responsibility on time lines," it said.
The committee said the proposal merit consideration and asked the two ministries to take a quick decision on it.
It also desired strict compliance to compressed time lines for clearances besides fixing accountability at all levels so that the stipulated time frame was maintained.
The committee noted with surprise that in the case of wildlife clearances there were no time lines prescribed.
However there was an empowered committee constituted by the Supreme Court that addressed some questions on the subject.
It also said the Army had approached the apex court seeking an order that for roads falling within 50 km of the border, no wildlife clearance be dispensed with. This Army plea is now under the court's consideration.