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The Highways Ministry has said it hopes that soon there might not be any need for compulsory environment nod for mining minor minerals like sand and soil for road projects which has stalled 53 projects worth over 53,000 crore.
"Leases of minor minerals, including their renewal for an area of less than 5 hectares, can be granted by states only at present after getting Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) clearance. We are taking steps to address it soon so that no environment nod is required," Road Transport and Highways Secretary Vijay Chibber told PTI.
Chibber said the Ministry has resolved most of the roadblocks impeding sector's growth and the Cabinet Committee on Investments (CCI) has already given its nod on these.
"Now only three issues are left to be resolved including the need for doing away with the mandatory environment nod, which will further boost the sector," he said.
As per highways builders body NHBF, 53 highway projects worth over Rs 53,000 crore are stuck for more than a year after the Supreme Court in February 2012 brought minor minerals, including their renewal for an area of less than 5 hectares, under the ambit of MoEF clearances.
Prior to the apex Court order, only mining of major minerals needed the nod.
According to officials sources, the Road Ministry will soon seek a clarification in this regard from the apex court as it is of the view that road projects do not fall in the ambit of the order, which was related to a different case.
They said the CCI is also looking at the issue and MoEF may issue a notification that road projects are exempted from it once the clarity is obtained.
"These 53 projects, each worth 80 to 100 km stretch are in states like Haryana, Punjab Karantaka, Kerala, Rajasthan and Maharashtra. Besides, in Jharkhand and Bihar projects are stuck due to informal mining ban by the states," said M Murali, National Highways Builders Federation.
Murali said Bihar was one of the worst-hit states with as many as 13 projects stuck for more than a year.
Common soil is needed for projects and environment nod takes more than a year, stalling projects, Murali said.
Earlier, sources had said Road Transport and Highways Minister C P Joshi had asked states to provide special category status to highways for providing necessary quarrying licences.
Last week, the government gave nod to delink environment clearance from forest, which has paved the way for launch of 20 stalled road projects involving investment of Rs 27,000 crore.
The CCI had said that major bottlenecks impeding the growth of highways sector, including de-linking environment clearance from forest nod, have been cleared.
Forest clearance was earlier mandatory the before start of work on stretches falling in forest and non-forest areas.
Besides, the issues resolved include grant of "Special Exemption or No Objection Certificate under Forest Rights Act, 2006" for strengthening and widening of National Highways projects, specifically pertaining to diversion of protected forest land under the Forest Conservation Act, 1980.
Other major steps included "treating the strengthening and widening of national highways infrastructure projects differently from new projects and allowing construction of national highways in non-forest areas, as expenditure does not become infructuous in such projects".
The government also announced that 4,000 km of road projects were permitted to be taken up for upgradation this in 2012-13 and in case of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects, it has been decided that the debts due to the lenders will be considered as "secured" loan.
The highways sector has been battling problems like equity crunch, delays in clearances and land acquisition besides major players abandoning projects mid-way.
Earlier, GVK Power and Infrastructure had announced termination of its contract with NHAI for building Rs 7,500 crore major highway Shivpuri-Dewas Expressway in Madhya Pradesh. Another firm GMR Infrastructure had cancelled its contract with the authority for building the Kishangarh- Udaipur-Ahmedabad highway.
The ministry has set an internal target of awarding 9,000 km of projects in 2013-14 to ensure award of at least 7,300 km to revive the sector against the backdrop of a dismal show last year when award of road projects declined to 1,933 km -- much below the target of 9,500 km.
