NEW DELHI, MAY 23:

Prakash Javadekar, at the helm of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, is intent on not letting the ministry be seen as an “impediment''.

Addressing the media to highlight the ministry’s achievements in the last two years, Javadekar once again reiterated that the time taken to give clearance to projects since the previous UPA regime has been reduced from 600 days to about 190 days and within a year, it would be slashed further to just 100 days.

He said it was just a matter of revising the processes, such as decentralising powers, to reduce lags. While the ministry has approved over 920 projects in the last two years, the Minister avoided answering questions on how many projects have been "rejected''.

However, at the same time Javadekar, Minister of State (Independent Charge), also said that in the next three years the ministry would focus on increasing compliance to laws.

The government is mulling bringing into place a law on civil penalities that the ministry is currently working on. Under this law, Javadekar said penalties for violations would be revised and depending on the gravity of violation, penalties would range between Rs. 10,000 and Rs. 10 crore.