High Level Committee submits Report on six environmental laws

The Ministry of Environment, Forests andClimate Change constituted a High Level

Committee (Chair: Mr. T.S.R. Subramanian) inAugust 2014 to review six environmental laws

and suggest amendments to them.

The Committee was to review the followinglaws: 

(i) Indian Forests Act, 1927, 

(ii) Wild Life(Protection) Act, 1972

 (iii) Water (Preventionand Control of Pollution) Act, 1974, (iv) Forest

(Conservation) Act, 1980,

 (v) Air (Preventionand Control of Pollution) Act, 1981, 

(vi)Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.

The Committee submitted its Report onNovember 18, 2014.11.The Report of the

Committee has not been placed in the publicdomain as yet. According to news reports, key

recommendations of the Committee relate to: 

 Formulating an overarching law to regulateenvironmental clearances.

 Creating a National EnvironmentalManagement Authority at the central level,and State Environmental ManagementAuthorities at the state level.

 Creating an appellate court for thoseindustries aggrieved by penalties and theappraisal process.

 Revising the compensatory afforestationpolicy to provide for 2:1 afforestation inrevenue areas, and 3:1 afforestation indegraded forest areas as against the currentpolicy of 1:1 afforestation.