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The National Green Tribunal has set aside Delhi Development Authority's new building rules which exempted realty projects from taking environment impact assessment (EIA). In a detailed judgment dated December 8, published on Wednesday, NGT likewise set aside the Union environment ministry’s notice of December 9 which exempted real estate projects (up to 1,50,000 sq. m developed zone) in the nation from filing EIA and acquiring environmental clearance (EC). This ministry’s notice is also addressed to the urban local bodies who sanction these projects. The environment ministry in its notice had additionally said that "consent to establish" and "consent to work" under the sections of the Air Act 1981 and the Water Act 1974 won't be required any longer from the state pollution control boards for large building ventures.
The notice was challenged by a group of petitioners in NGT on different grounds. They said simplicity of working together can't be a ground for exempting the application of environmental law. RTI responses had before refered to a letter from then urban development minister M Venkaiah Naidu to former environment minister Prakash Javadekar in which Naidu composed that coordinating ecological clearances with the authorization to develop structures was a "milestone in ease of doing business”. The environment ministry had justified the notice in the light of the government's goal of "giving houses to all by 2022 with a goal of making accessible moderate lodging to weaker segments in urban zones".
In an unequivocal judgment -previous NGT chairperson Swatanter Kumar before he retiring on Wednesday stated: “Ease of doing business' can't be a ground for making change to the ecological laws, as it basically falls past the extent of the scope and purposes for the environmental laws in force. It is just a ploy to go around the arrangements of the environmental appraisal”.
It noted that the ministry’s notice does not take into consideration the impact a building will have on the environment. The construction industry itself emits 22% of India’s total carbon Dioxide emissions. Summoning the Paris agreement on climate change, the bench likewise alluded to international law guideline of non-regression and said environmental laws can't be altered to weaken them. This principle should be brought into play since today environmental law is confronting various dangers. It was also pointed out by NGT that the local authorities which are the sanctioning authorities would also become adjudicatory authorities under the impugned notification thus, making them a judge in their own cause.
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