Views solicited from public, State Govt, NGOs
The high-level committee (HlC), which has been constituted by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change to review the progress of implementation of five important Acts in various States, will visit Odisha from September 11 to 13. The committee is scheduled to take stock of the five major statutes, namely, Environment (Protection) Act, 1986; Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980; Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972; Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act and Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981.
The HlC is headed by former Union Cabinet Secretary TSR Subramanian. The other members include former Union Government Secretary Viswanath Anand, former Justice AK Srivastav and former Additional Solicitor General KN Bhat.
The terms of references of the committee include assessment of the status of implementation of the five Acts, consideration of various court orders relating to these Acts and recommending specific amendments required to meet the objectives in the current period. The committee is expected to complete its assignment within a period of two months.
The committee proposes to interact with the State Government, NGOs, Central Government departments and other line departments.
Persons, representatives of various organisations desirous to meet the committee to hand over memorandums or for direct interactions may send their requests to the mail address hlc.moef2014@gmail.com.
The HlC will hold two meetings, one with the officers of the State Government on September 12 from 4 pm to 5 pm and the other with the NGOs and prominent persons from the civil society on the same day from 5 pm to 6 pm. Both the meetings will be held at the State Guest House, Bhubaneswar.