In a welcome news to two coastal districts of Maharashtra, Centre has lifted the moratorium on development projects in a large number of villages in Ratnagiri and Sindhdurg districts of Konkan region, which was "arbitrarily" imposed by the UPA government.
Environment and Forest Minister Prakash Javadekar told reporters that the decision has been taken to lift moratorium as the decision to impose it was "taken arbitrarily" way back in 2010 when Jairam Ramesh was at the helm of the Ministry.
The moratorium was being extended after every four months since then.
He said that the move would help some 900 villages in the two districts where development work had come to a standstill for the last four years.
The Minister, however, hastened to add that moratorium has not been lifted on any of the villages which have been declared as ecologically sensitive by the Kasturirangan panel and in the Gadgil report on the Western Ghats.
