Improved environmental investment looks like a real possibility in India – a move that should benefit the wellness and wellbeing of future generations. The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) is keen to simplify the rules for key investments and remove bottlenecks within the Union Environment ministry.
The PMO has targeted a number of key areas, including implementing and seeing through a number of the suggestions that have been made by a high-powered Kasturirangan committee. These relate to investment bottlenecks and outdated policies in the environment ministry.
One of the most important areas is within road infrastructure expansion, as any sort of plan or movement in this area requires a number of different permissions from the environment ministry, even if this is clearly not required.
The Kasturirangan committee has recommended that they can deal directly with projects involving road infrastructure, especially in cases where the road has to be widened. Up until now, all road-widening projects have needed a number of special permissions from the environment agency, even in circumstances where the road is less than 100 kilometres in length.
The PMO also looked at empowering city municipalities and decentralising the process, to ease the burden on the environment ministry and also to speed things up.
Senior officials in the ministry also hope that the changes will assist ordinary middle class people in being able to afford homes, as this comes under the new legislation too.
In principle, the key recommendations of the new scheme have already received ‘the nod’ from the PMO, and the committee hopes that all outstanding issues with the Environment Ministry will soon be resolved.
Officials hope that by tweaking outdated processes, India’s infrastructure will grow throughout the coming months.
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