New Delhi, Jul 27 (PTI) The government on Thursday told Parliament it "does not remove" information related to projects requiring clearance from the Parivesh portal and said it has, in fact, made the process of granting clearance transparent.

Responding to a query by Binoy Viswam, a Communist Party of India (CPI) from Kerala, Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav told Rajya Sabha the Parivesh portal serves both as a platform for environmental policy dissemination and a means to streamline and expedite the clearance process through the use of technology.

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The portal allows stakeholders to access various project-related details submitted as part of the clearance application.

Yadav emphasised the government's commitment to transparency, saying, "The ministry does not remove any information related to projects that require clearance. In fact, the ministry has made the entire EC (environmental clearance) process transparent. The information/documents submitted by the project proponents as part of the terms of reference (ToR)/environmental clearance (EC) application, including the environmental impact assessment (EIA) report/environmental management plan (EMP), and minutes of Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) meetings are all available in the public domain on the Parivesh website."

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The government's response in the Rajya Sabha came in the wake of an April media report claiming that the environment ministry had ceased providing environmental impact details of projects on the Parivesh portal.

In its response to the report, the ministry had clarified no decision had been made to restrict the disclosure of information relating to proposals in the public domain.

The Parivesh portal is a single-window platform designed to facilitate the process of obtaining green approvals for various projects in India, including environmental clearance, forest clearance, wild life (WL) clearance, and coastal regulation zone (CRZ) clearance administered by the ministry.

It efficiently handles the submission, appraisal, processing, tracking, and monitoring of applications related to environment, forest, wild life, and coastal regulation zone clearances.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)