NEW DELHI, JAN 28: Environment Minister Suresh Prabhu has scored over his counterpart in the Urban Affairs Ministry - while Ram Jethamalani's proposal to make documents available for a nominal fee has been stonewalled by bureaucrats, the Environment Ministry has put all project clearances on the Internet.With the new website created by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, the status of every project reaching the Ministry for environmental clearance will be available to the general public."This facility will provide information on all projects, at all times", says an enthusiastic Prabhu. Apart from giving people the right to information, it would also create greater transparency about the status of projects awaiting environmental or forest clearance by the Ministry, he added.Click nic.in/envfor and the site comes alive, giving the listings of projects pending with the Ministry. The projects are divided into five categories: industrial, thermal, mining, infrastructure, river valley andhydro-electric projects.The website, which has a list of all projects' applications cleared from November 1998, is updated every 15 days. If additional information is sought, or if the project has been denied clearance, then that fact too would be made public.The text of the clearance letter, including the conditions regarding environmental safeguards, would be available on the Net. Any public-spirited person or non-governmental organisation can download the terms and conditions of the clearance and hold the project managers responsible for meeting these conditions."Once a project proposal is received, there has to be feedback about the environmental impact, not just from experts, but also from the people living in the area where the project is going to come up," said Prabhu, adding that the opinions of these people would contribute to an on-line debate on the environmental pros and cons. "This will serve as an on-line public hearing", said the Minister.Evidently, the Ministry's bureaucrats wereso swamped by queries about project clearances, that they plumped for the website suggestion once it was mooted by the Minister. It is hoped the move to cyberspace will see a greater streamlining of the Ministry's functioning and speedier clearances, with the site being updated twice a month. "What motivated us was that people from all parts of the country would come down to Delhi to find out the fate of their project. So putting the information they were seeking on the Net was seen as the easiest and the most convenient way of disseminating information on clearance", said Environment Secretary Vishwanath Anand.While almost all other ministries now having websites, "this is the first time that the actual letter of clearance will be put on the Net", said one official.All project applications have to be accompanied by a floppy disc, providing specific details in a given format, so that precious time is not lost in re-entering the data into the ministry's files. The names and e-mail addresses of members ofthe experts committee on each project is also put on the Net., so that the public can communicated directly with them. "This will certainly help NGOs pin down project managers on the agreed conditionalities of the clearance", said Prabhu.
