The Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) will soon launch an e-governance initiative offering online consent to firms seeking an environmental clearance. There was a time when filling applications in government offices meant greasing palms and waiting an eternity for the requisite permission to come through. Now, if the MPCB has its way, bureaucracy may be on its way out. You won’t even have to visit its office for an environmental clearance if the board’s bid to make the process of granting consent transparent, easy and accountable, works.
This is the first such initiative by a state environment regulator where applicants will have the option of filing their submissions online, tracking the progress of their applications and getting consent, without visiting the MPCB office even once.
Also the applicant firm can count down to four months and then assume that consent has been granted if there is no response from the authority. “There is already a provision in the Water and Air Act which grants deemed consent if we don’t respond within 120 days; we intend to activate that,” said DB Boralkar, outgoing MPCB member-secretary.
Boralkar, whose radical style of functioning has come under criticism from some quarters of the state government, was transferred out last Friday.
Meanwhile, the board has signed a letter of intent and completed the services and supply agreement with a consortium for the purpose. “The Rs14-crore project will be launched soon. We are awaiting a bank guarantee and performance guarantee from the consortium,” said Boralkar, adding that, “Digitising existing records is also on the anvil, though that could take long.”
Every day, MPCB receives around 150 applications from across the state. In the current scheme of things, red-tape makes it difficult for an applicant to figure out the status of his file. “Often, we’re told that some superior has not cleared it or that he/she wants money. With this initiative, it will not be possible to misguide us,” says a chemical unit owner whose application is still awaiting approval.
Online consent will make things easier for MPCB as well. “It will build accountability and introduce transparency. Each one of us will now be able to see which file is moving and which is not. If some application has been kept pending needlessly, the superior can see it and demand an explanation from his junior,” said Boralkar.
B Shankar, president of Ashtech, which is executing the project along with Lab Vantage, which specialise in laboratory information management systems, and ABM Knowledgeware, said that Ashtech will initially be responsible for processing, operations and maintenance. “After initial hand-holding, the work will be taken over by MPCB. Applicants will get passwords to track their application status,” he added.
Autor(en)/Author(s): Seemaa Kamdar
Quelle/Source: Daily News & Analysis, 29.05.2007
