Panels notified for clearing small mining projects

Ambika Sharma

Tribune News Service

Solan, September 5

Divisional Commissioner has finally notified the district level Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Authority and District Level Expert Appraisal Committee (DLEAC) by notifying the list of nominated members.

This paves the way for screening of nine pending mining cases whose lease area was less than five hectares. These cases have been awaiting clearance since June when under the earlier arrangement the state level committees were according such clearances. No case having lease area less than five hectares was accepted by the state level committee after the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) had notified that such cases would be dealt with by the district level panels.

According to the notification issued by the Divisional Commissioner, a copy of which was available with The Tribune, Dr Maninder Jeet Kaur of the Himalayan Research Group, Shimla has been nominated as a member for the EIA Authority while Dr Sunila Kapur and Dr Narinder Thakur, both of whom were Associate Professors, in the local Government Degree College, have been included as members of the DLEAC. Manoj Kumar, General Manager, District Industries Centre, was also nominated as the other member of the DLEAC as per laid norms notified by the MoEF.

Assistant Geologist Sarit Chander said the first meeting of the two panels would be held soon and this will take stock of the nine pending cases. The panels were notified on August 16.

As per a notification issued by the Government of India , the District Magistrate is supposed to head the EIA authority and it will have members from various fields. With the nomination of the requisite members the constitution of this authority has been completed.

The DLEA is likewise supposed to be headed by the senior most Executive Engineer of the IPH Department and it will have members from related fields .

Since mining yields revenue worth crores to the state government by means of royalty, the delay in granting permission for mining was causing revenue loss to the state exchequer.

These committees will asses various issues like the anticipated environmental damage caused to the area through mining and the mitigation measures proposed by the lessee in undertaking this activity in a scientific manner.