Comm Secy Forest reviews reforms under 'Ease of Doing Business'

SRINAGAR, JULY 03: Commissioner Secretary Forest, Environment and Ecology today convened a meeting to review the implementation status of various reforms under 'Ease of Doing Business’ introduced by the Department of Industries Policy and Promotion (DIPP), Government of India.

Principal Chief Conservator of Forests; Chairman J&K State Pollution Control Board; Member Secretary, J&K SPCB; Special Secretary Technical; Environmental Engineer (Nodal Officer EoDB), J&K SPCB and Consultant from Earnest and Young appointed by the Industries & Commerce Department State of J&K and other Officers were present in the meeting.

At the outset, the Chairman J&K SPCB, briefed about these business reforms undertaken by the J&K SPCB and apprised that out of 47 Business Reform Action Points introduced by the DIPP Government of India since 2017 J&K SPCB have completed 44 Business Reform Action Points. As such J&K State has got a jump from 32 level to 22 level as per the evaluation done by Department of Industries Policy and Promotion (DIPP), Government of India.

The chairman explained that EoDB reforms are aimed at bringing transparency in the process of consent management and reducing the time taken for obtaining the mandatory clearances from the J&K SPCB by way of making online consent management and monitoring system (OCMMS) fully functional and more efficient and efficacious.

The Member Secretary J&K SPCB gave a detailed information on the key initiatives taken by the Board and assured these reforms will give a fillip to the overall development of the State as these reforms are Industry friendly with adequate safeguards on environmental protection.  

The Consultant from the Industries apprised the Commissioner Secretary that few more reforms have been introduced recently few days back by the Government of India for the State Pollution Control Board on the issues of E-waste and Plastic Waste Management and the total point of reforms have been increased to 58 from 44 under Business Reforms Action Plan 2018.

The Commissioner Secretary Forest appreciated the work done by the J&K SPCB and issued directions to the Pollution Control Officers for introducing and   implementing these reforms and asked the SPCB to do exercise for implementation of more points as suggested by DIPP in a time bound manner and assured that wherever the need of Government is required all kind of help shall be provided for implementation of these reforms in letter and spirit. He also desired to make the J&K State on the same parameters for Ease of Doing Business which makes Maximum governance with Minimum Government as being done by the other states like Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Telangana etc.

The Commissioner Secretary Forests apprised during the meeting that through the reforms, the complex procedure has been simplified, fixed timelines have been framed and exemption of industries from field inspection for Green Categories having satisfactory compliance history of past 02 years and consecutive two consents of the J&K SPCB have been introduced for the Ease of Business. White categories of industries have been exempted from seeking consent of the Board.

With regard to reforms to be undertaken by the Forest Department J&K the Principal Chief Conservator of Forest assured that the same shall be implemented on-line at the earliest for the Ease of Business in the Forest Department and common man shall be benefited by these reforms.