Bengal's forest department has issued a series of directives to avoid delays in granting forest and wildlife clearances to critical infrastructure and development projects.
According to an office memorandum issued on June 9, the directives will tackle a key "bottleneck"- the "repetitive, fragmented" issuance of essential-details-sought (EDS) queries by clearance-processing officers to project proponents.
Experts, however, said the directives take away powers from such officers, including divisional forest officers (DFOs), nodal officers and wildlife wardens, and force them to clear projects without a thorough examination.
For instance, the order said a DFO or a wildlife warden cannot directly issue an EDS to a project proponent "without higher administrative endorsement".
An EDS is an official query requesting missing documents, clarifications or data before a project proposal can be processed for clearance.
The order has also directed the formation of a state-level review board, which will be chaired by the additional chief secretary of forests, and will take stock of EDS clearances every month.
In case an EDS has been raised more than once regarding a project, the project application will automatically be placed on the board's agenda, the order said.
It added that if there are repeated queries, the nodal officer, the chief wildlife warden (CWLW) and the DFOs concerned will have to appear before the board, and justify the technical and legal necessities for doing so.
Speaking to PTI, Debadityo Sinha, lead of the climate and ecosystems team at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, said it could be intimidating for officers to appear before the board.
"A good officer is the one who asks many questions from the project proponent concerned. This may lead to a delay in granting clearances, but it does not mean that one demoralises the officer for his criticism. There is no need for the officer to appear before the board as there is an option on the PARIVESH portal to comment on the EDS query," Sinha added.
The order has also formed a state technical screening cell (STSC) under the supervision of the nodal officer and a designated representative of the CWLW at the state headquarters.
The STSC has to conduct a rapid 48-hour compliance check of the baseline data before any clearance application is formally pushed into the digital queue of the field officers.
Baseline data involves information about water, soil and air, among other factors, at the project site. This data establishes pre-project conditions to predict impacts and design mitigation strategies.
Prakriti Srivastava, a former Indian Forest Service (IFS) officer, told PTI that the 48-hour compliance check mentioned in the order is ambiguous.
It does not clarify whether the time given is for checking the final compliance documents or carrying out the collection of baseline data, according to Srivastava.
"If the order is interpreted to mean that baseline data collection must happen immediately, instead of over multiple seasons, it can be problematic. Furthermore, keeping such ambiguity open to interpretation will mostly be used to facilitate diversion," she added.
Another concern is that the order said the territorial DFO and the protected area network or wildlife manager concerned have to "mandate and schedule a single joint site inspection" within 10 working days since the formal registration of the application on PARIVESH.
It added that all boundary verifications, biological-impact assessments etc. must be consolidated during this single site visit.
The inspection will involve revenue authorities, the wildlife wing and the project proponent, according to the order.
Sinha said conducting a single site visit within 10 working days of submitting the application would create immense pressure on the officers.
"In most forest departments, there is already a shortage of forest officers. They are already overburdened and asking them to evaluate the project site in such a short span of time will not allow them to work properly," he added.
Srivastava said the directives seem to give priority to granting clearances, rather than conserving forests.
"They have removed the few checks and balances that were meant to stop a project from harming the forests. The whole administration now seems to be working towards granting clearances," she added.