To bring transparency and to ensure quick disposal of cases for grant of No Objection certificate (NOC), consent, site clearance for enhancement of power load, the Punjab government has decided to simplify procedure to allow enhancement of electric connection in existing load to industry in the state.
Bikram Singh Majithia, minister of science and technology and public relations, said here on Friday that the decision follows a meeting that the representatives of industry and Punjab Pollution Control Board(PPCB) had with him and the chief minister Parkash Singh Badal.
Majithia told FE that its long from when the industry had been insisting that the existing procedure was not only cumbersome but also led to undue delays. According to new simplified procedure for quick disposal of NOC in two tier cases, the green category small scale NOC cases of industry would be decided by the PPCB Regional Offices within a specified time frame.
Majithia said that the henceforth, the small-scale red category cases would be processed by regional office and would be decided by zonal office as per time frame already conveyed. Similarly, the application for the large and medium scale NOC cases would be filed in the zonal office and will be processed within 15 days as decided by the chairman, PPCB with total time for grant of NOC would be one month.
The minister said that in future consent to operate, clearance and monitoring of the large and medium scale units would be done by zonal offices and then these cases would be decided by PPCB head office. if required, the zonal office may ask regional offices for visit or assistance. About the one-time facility for enhancement of 25% increase in electric load of the existing sanctioned load, Majithia said that there would be no addition of plant and machinery generating pollution load. Also there would be no increase in pollution load either on modernisation or by expansion. However, the industry will have to deposit the consent to establish application for modernisation and expansion. He clarified that this facility would not be extended to industries established in approved residential areas or approved town planning schemes.
Majithia said that for site clearance, it has been decided in case of site clearance for new and existing projects that the concerned departments would send their comments within one month positively otherwise cases would be considered assuming that departments have no objection for grant of site clearance for all new projects. For existing projects, those who want to install co-generation plant, captive power plant and have already obtained site clearance, these projects would be exempted from site clearance. However, the entrepreneurs would obtain letter of exemption from director of factories.