New Delhi, Nov. 9: Sharad Pawar has shown Mamata Banerjee how to conduct alliance business.

The Centre today cleared the first phase of Lavasa, a sprawling township project that has been supported by Pawar but was caught in procedural hurdles cited by the Union environment ministry.

The conditional clearance – the ministry has laid down 47 steps to be followed “in letter and spirit” – came less than a week after the Maharashtra pollution control board registered a criminal case against chief promoter Ajit Gulabchand and others for violating an environment law.

Two days earlier, on November 3, Pawar, whose relatives were once on the board of the Lavasa Corporation, had called on Sonia Gandhi and reportedly expressed the opinion that the threat from Anna Hazare and the BJP should be fought by the UPA as a cohesive force.

Later in the week, Pawar supported the petrol price hike at a time Mamata was piling pressure on the Centre.

Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan said his government had only gone by the rule book on Lavasa but his team was open to the idea of project taking off if it fulfils the Centre’s conditions.

“The ministry, hereby, accords environmental clearance for the project as per provisions of Environmental Impact Assessment Notification, 2006, and its subsequent amendments, subject to strict compliance of terms and conditions,” a government order said.

Filing of the case was one of the key conditions of the environment ministry for granting clearance to the first phase of the project. “We have now got environment clearance from the ministry of environment and forests and the stakeholders will be happy to hear this,” a relieved Ajit Gulabchand, the chairman of Lavasa Corporation, said.

Pawar had introduced Gulabchand, a close family friend from the politician’s Baramati days, to the picturesque project site in the Sahyadri mountains, an hour’s drive from Pune. The area had caught the eye of Pawar during a chopper ride when he was Maharashtra chief minister.

Gulabchand said the decision would also reassure hundreds of villagers and workers engaged in the construction of the hill city project.

The ministry had laid down five conditions, as suggested by the Expert Appraisal Committee, for Lavasa to comply with before grant of environment clearance.

The conditions include demarcation of land usage which includes open spaces, diverting five per cent of its expenses for corporate social responsibility, creation of an environment restoration fund, which in turn will be monitored by a verification and monitoring committee and a submission by the company that violations would not be repeated.

The ministry has also set out a list of 47 conditions for Lavasa, to be followed in letter and spirit, which includes earmarking five per cent of the total project cost for corporate social responsibility moves.

These also include having a separate budget for community development activities and income generating programmes over and above the vocational training for individuals to take up self-employment and jobs.

The ministry also asked Lavasa to submit its environment-related policy and plan of action to it within three months and abide by the written undertaking given to the government.

The project developers have been asked to make a clear demarcation of ‘no-development and construction zones’. The developers have been directed to avoid carrying out hill cutting, digging, excavation or any other activity involving generation of soil “as far as possible”.

“There shall be no discharge of any kind of effluents from any facilities, including the treated waste water, from the sewage treatment plant/effluent treatment plant. The entire treated waste water from STP/ETP shall be recycled,” the order said.