Environmental nod given to 29 infra projects in Northeast in over 2 years, Parliament told

New Delhi, Aug 21 (PTI) The Environment Ministry has cleared 29 large infrastructure projects in the Northeastern states over the past two years, the Parliament was informed on Thursday.

In a written reply in the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Environment Kirti Vardhan Singh said that from April 1, 2023 to August 17, 2025, the ministry has granted 29 environmental clearances (ECs) to the project proposals pertaining to the Northeast region.

Assam accounted for the bulk of these approvals with 17 projects, followed by Tripura with six. Meghalaya received three clearances while Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Sikkim had one each, Singh said.

The minister said that the process of granting ECs "involves defined steps including site-specific scoping, baseline environmental studies, public consultations and appraisal by the expert committees" to ensure ecological concerns are addressed.

The reply came in response to a question on whether the government had evaluated the environmental impacts of large-scale projects in the Northeast's sensitive ecosystems and taken note of a recent report by Jamia Millia Islamia which warned that climate change is lowering agricultural yields in the region and threatening food security.

While not referring to the report directly, Singh said the government has put in place several schemes to deal with climate variability, erratic rainfall, floods and drought-like conditions that affect agriculture in the Northeast.

These include the National Action Plan on Climate Change and state-level plans, the National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture, National Innovations on Climate Resilient Agriculture and the Mission Organic Value Chain Development for the Northeastern region, among others.

He added that efforts are also underway with state governments, ICAR and agricultural universities to build "adaptive capacities, promote sustainable practices and safeguard food security in the region". PTI GVS GVS KVK KVK