Earth extraction for linear projects to get green nod relief
The office memorandum, issued on March 18, referred to a notification issued by the ministry on March 17 defining linear projects, and listing out the safeguards that need to be followed
Extraction, sourcing or borrowing of ordinary earth for “linear projects” will be exempted from environmental clearance, but with environmental safeguards, an office memorandum issued by the Union environment ministry last month said.
The office memorandum, issued on March 18, referred to a notification issued by the ministry on March 17 defining linear projects, and listing out the safeguards that need to be followed.
The notification, seen by HT, stated that linear projects will include “slurry pipelines, oil and gas transportation pipeline, highways or laying of railway lines, which require extraction or sourcing or borrowing of ordinary earth above the threshold of 20,000 cubic metre and does not require prior environment clearance under this notification”.
All linear projects exempted from environmental clearance shall follow the standard operating procedure, it said.
The Expert Appraisal Committee shall, while granting prior environment clearance for the projects requiring extraction of ordinary earth, include the environmental safeguards prescribed in the notification, it said.
Further, a committee consisting of district officials, officer of the state pollution control board, forest department, geologist etc shall decide the quantum of ordinary earth that can be extracted for a particular project based on the different criteria, it said.
Earlier, a notification in March 2020 exempted linear projects from prior environmental clearance following representations for waiver of the clearance for borrowing of ordinary earth for roads; and manual extraction of lime shells (dead shell), shrines, etc in inter-tidal zones.
The notification came under heavy criticism from environmentalists who said it could lead to indiscriminate extraction and a bonanza for various infrastructure projects.
On March 23 last year, the Supreme Court struck down the 2020 notification, terming it “unguided and arbitrary”.
The bench of justices AS Oka and Sanjay Karol also questioned the “undue haste” that was shown by the Centre to issue the notification in “public interest” as a nationwide lockdown was imposed days later in view of the Covid-19 pandemic and all linear projects had come to a halt.
The nationwide lockdown was imposed on March 25, 2020 and the notification was issued on March 28 that year.
The bench also struck down “item 6 of the Appendix-IX” to the March 2020 notification, “on the grounds that the term linear projects is not defined and is very vague and the process to be adopted for excavation has not been set out”. It said that “item 6” is a case of “completely unguided and blanket exemption which is, per se, arbitrary and violative of article 14 of the Constitution of India”.
In order to address issues raised by the Supreme Court, a draft notification amending the said notification was published on August 2, 2024, inviting objections and suggestions.
