[:en]By Rohit Prajapati+
The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change “proudly” announced recently it’s new endeavour with yet another acronym “PARIVESH It is a web based, role based workflow application developed for submission and monitoring of the proposals submitted by the proponents for seeking Environment, Forest, Wildlife and CRZ Clearances from Central, State and district level authorities. It automates the entire tracking of proposals which includes online submission of a new proposal, editing/updating the details of proposals and displays status of the proposals at each stage of the workflow.”
This process reveals the worst kept secret of the Ministry of Environment and Forests “Dr. Vardhan [Minister] … said that with PARIVESH, MoEFCC has become more of a facilitator, than a regulator.”
MoEF&CC’s mandated concern should be for Environment, Forest, and Climate as mentioned in the name of the Ministry, but the recent announcement makes it clear that the ministry is working for ease of business for industries instead of protecting environment. Alike PARIVESH of MOEFF & CC could instead have an online tracking and status of complaints for the violation of terms and conditions of environment clearances, environment laws, about air, water, and soil pollution.
Generally when people affected by pollution file complains they get poor or no reply from the MoEF&CC, State Pollution Control Boards and they are not in position to locate status of their complaints.
Even in our Public Interest litigation Writ Petition No. 375 of 2012, Supreme court Order dated 22.02.2016 clearly states that “17. It would be in the interest of implementation of the objective sought to be achieved, to also require each concerned State (and each, concerned Union Territory) to make provision for “online, real time, continuous monitoring system” to display emission levels, in the public domain, on the portal of the concerned State Pollution Control Board. … Such measures shall be put in place by all the concerned State Governments (including, the concerned Union Territories), within six months from today.” This deadline was over on 22.08.207 but no action has been taken by the MoEF&CC.
This has once again exposed the misplaced concerns and intentions of the MoEF& CC that favours industries over Nature.
MoEFCC ( +918826837749 ) sent: Hon PM launched Single-Window Integrated System ‘PARIVESH’ for complete online, expeditious & transparent system for Environment, Forest, Wildlife and CRZ clearances at Central and State Level. It will lead to better compliance and sustainable development. Visit https://parivesh.nic.in Regards, Dr Harsh Vardhan, MEFCC.
+Environment Activist.
PIB statement about PARIVESH
The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, launched PARIVESH (Pro-Active and Responsive facilitation by Interactive, Virtuous and Environmental Single-window Hub) on the occasion of World Biofuel Day, here today. PARIVESH is a Single-Window Integrated Environmental Management System, developed in pursuance of the spirit of ‘Digital India’ initiated by the Prime Minister and capturing the essence of Minimum Government and Maximum Governance.
In a series of tweets, Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Dr. Harsh Vardhan highlighted that PARIVESH automates the entire process of submitting the application and tracking the status of such proposals at each stage of processing. Dr. Vardhan emphasised that with the launch of PARIVESH, the vision of the Prime Minister for E-Governance and enhancing Ease of Doing Responsible Business is being translated into action by MoEF&CC. He said that with PARIVESH, MoEFCC has become more of a facilitator, than a regulator. The Minister said that “PARIVESH” is a workflow based application, based on the concept of web architecture. He pointed out that it has been rolled out for online submission, monitoring and management of proposals submitted by Project Proponents to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MOEFCC), as well as to the State Level Environmental Impact Assessment Authorities (SEIAA), to seek various types of clearances (e.g. Environment, Forest, Wildlife and Coastal Regulation Zone Clearances) from Central, State and district-level authorities. He said that the system has been designed, developed and hosted by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, with technical support from National Informatics Centre, (NIC), New Delhi.
The Minister said that the main highlights of PARIVESH include – single registration and single sign-in for all types of clearances (i.e. Environment, Forest, Wildlife and CRZ), unique-ID for all types of clearances required for a particular project and a single Window interface for the proponent to submit applications for getting all types of clearances (i.e. Environment, Forests, Wildlife and CRZ clearances). Highlighting that PARIVESH offers a framework to generate economic growth and strengthens Sustainable Development through EGovernance, he also stated that with automatic highlighting of non-compliance by the system, PARIVESH helps in improving the overall performance and efficiency of the whole appraisal process.
The Minister highlighted that PARIVESH also helps the processing authorities, as it has a Single Window System for Central, State and District level clearances, auto-generation of agenda (based on first come, first served principle), minutes of the meetings and online generation of approval letters, resulting in ease and uniformity in processing of clearance applications, online submission and monitoring of compliance reports including geo-tagged images of the site by regulatory body / inspecting officers even through the Mobile App for enhanced compliance monitoring. He added that the facility of Geographic Information System (GIS) interface for the Appraisal Committee will help them in analyzing the proposal efficiently, automatic alerts (via SMS and emails) at important stages to the concerned officers, committee members and higher authorities to check the delays, if any. “PARIVESH enables project proponents, citizens to view, track and interact with scrutiny officers, generates online clearance letters, online mailers and alerts to state functionaries in case of delays beyond stipulated time for processing of applications”, Dr. Harsh Vardhan said.
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