Need to strike balance between need for land and green belt area: Govt to Lok Sabha

THe unification surround ministry on mon informed Lok Sabha that thither was a demand to strike a balance between the requirement of land for industrial projects, activities and the environmental needs while explaining why it decided to rationalise the green belt area for industrial estates to a minimum of 10% of the area of the industrial estate.Kirti Vardhan Singh, minister of state for environment, was responding to queries by Janata Dal (United) MP, Dileshwar Kamait, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP, PC Mohan in the ongoing winter session of Parliament.The MPs sought details of the revised greenbelt and plantation norms notified by the government for new industrial estates, parks and individual industrial projects under the Environmental Clearance framework, the rationale behind revising the earlier requirement of 33 per cent green cover to the present norms and steps taken to ensure that the revised norms continue to promote sustainable industrial growth.“There was a need to strike a balance between the requirement of land for the Projects/Activities and the environmental needs of the green belt along with the existing pollution control and abatement measures prescribed under the general and specific conditions forming part of the prior Environmental Clearance issued in accordance with the provisions of EIA Notification 2006 as amended, so as to optimize the use of available land,” he said.Also Read: Chandigarh: MoU paves way for compressed biogas facility at Dadumajra“The rationalisation of green belt/green cover was done based on the recommendations of a Committee, which was, inter alia, based on examining various International norms for developing green belt/green cover. The rationale for the revised green belt/green cover norms is that industries with higher pollution potential such as red category industries and orange category industries need to develop more percentage of green belt in order to mitigate the pollution that emerges from the industrial activity”, he said.“The central government has ensured that the revised green belt/green cover norms are implemented with a monitoring mechanism which ensures that the industrial estates shall submit a half yearly green belt status report to the State Pollution Control Boards (SPCB)/Pollution Control Committees (PCC) and the Integrated Regional Office (IRO) of MoEFCC, informing canopy coverage, number of living trees, height and species, survival rate, etc. With drone imagery,” he added.The individual industrial units also need to submit half yearly reports on their green belt areas.HT reported on October 30 that the Union environment ministry has changed the mandatory common green cover requirement for industrial estates from 33% to 10%, while introducing differentiated norms for individual industries based on their pollution potential, according to people aware of the matter who asked not to be named.In order to rationalise the green belt requirement based on pollution potential, the ministry, on October 29, directed that the revised criteria for developing green belt/green cover for Industrial Estates/Parks and individual industries may be adhered to in supersession of the OM dated October 27, 2020.The revised criteria, inter-alia, mandates that in Industrial Estates a minimum of 10% of the area of the industrial estate shall be designated as common green area and respective red category and orange category Industrial units within the Estate shall develop 15% and 10% of the area of their premises as green belt/green cover respectively.“The revised norms provide the benefit of additional land area to industries to expand their operations without compromising the environmental needs of developing green belt/ green cover,” he added.