SEIAA for environment friendly development

Patiala, Jan 28 (UNI) The newly constituted State Level Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA) has decided to evolve such a mechanism which will help in smooth and expeditious development of the state as well as protection of its environment and natural resources.

A spokesman of the SEIAA today said that in the first meeting of the Authority which held here today under the chairmanship of its Head, Dr Daljit Singh, it was decided that the projects which are covered under the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) notification dated September 14, 2006 and are pending with the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) are required to be scrutinised by the State Expert Appraisal Committee (SEAC).

The applications of these projects will be obtained from MoEF and the SEAC will screen and appraise these reports immediately so as to grant environmental clearances to these pending cases, the spokesman said.

The new project proponents may file their applications along with pre-feasibility report and conceptual plan to the regulatory authority.

The spokesman said that the SEIAA is now fully operational from the head office of the Punjab Pollution Control Board, Patiala. He further informed that project proponents like construction projects, thermal power plants, cement plants, sugar mills, distilleries, furnaces and common effluent treatment plants (up to certain limit specified in the notification) etc are now required to obtain prior environment clearances from SEIAA.

On the recommendations of the state government, the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) has constituted the SEIAA on November 19, 2007 for prior environment clearances to the projects pertaining in the category B and B1 mandatory under the Environment Protection Act, 1986. Earlier, all these projects had to obtain environment clearances from the MoEF.

UNI PS VN1753