10th Infrastructure Committee Meet held

January 25, 2023

The Infrastructure Committee was formed in 2009. The main objective of the committee formation is to speed up the government’s decision on infrastructure projects. The tenth meeting of the committee was recently chaired by the Union Minister of Road Transport Shri Nitin Gadkari. During the meeting, the committee discussed upon issues related to pending environmental clearances, land approvals, fund releases, etc.

Significance

Environmental clearances stall infrastructural projects. This is because every infrastructure project to be implemented in an environmentally fragile zone has to submit an Environmental Impact Assessment. Will the project implementation affect the ecosystem? Will it damage the trees in the region? Will it destruct the habitation? Will the project affect the flora and fauna? If yes, then an alternate has to be arranged. Say dam construction. Constructing a dam will submerge thousands of hectares of land. So the tribes in the region should be relocated. The endangered species in the region should be relocated.

Apart from environmental concerns, land allocation is also an issue. Finding the right land to implement the project is always a hindrance. India is the seventh biggest country in the world in terms of land area and is also heavily populated. Therefore, there are issues around land allocation.

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