This development follows inter-ministerial and inter-state consultations over the months after a Supreme Court order to set up an autonomous body for appraising projects and authorising the body to penalise offenders.

"The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change had inter-ministerial consultations and consultations with states for setting up of a regulator/authority under Section 3(3) of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986," said Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar in a written reply in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.

Javadekar added the regulator would oversee the process of accreditation of environment impact assessment (EIA) consultants, improve the quality of EIA reports and appraisal, appraise projects for environment clearance, enforce conditions of project proponents seeking green nod and implementing the National Forest Policy (NFP).

However, Javadekar was silent on the proposed authority's penal powers. At present, only courts have the authority to impose penalty on the basis of complaints filed by authorised officers, a winding process that has hardly ever led to action. Handing over powers to officers of the government instead of the courts would require an amendment to the law.

It was not also clear whether the role of the state pollution control board (SPCB) and various regional offices of the ministry would be subsumed in the environment regulator or whether these would become an arm of the body. At the moment, the state pollution control boards and the regional offices of the ministry, which are severely short-staffed, oversee compliance. Javadekar's reply in the Lok Sabha said the regulator would be "enforcing the conditions stated in the environment clearances."

The announcement from Javadekar also stood in contrast to the recommendations of the high-level committee constituted by the Union environment ministry under former Cabinet Secretary TSR Subramanian to review environment laws.

It had suggested a new law under which an independent National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) and State Environment Management Authority (SEMA) at the Centre and state level would take the powers of the existing pollution control boards. Though the panel, too, had recommended that power should lie with the government to overrule the regulator.

Experts said without the power to prosecute offenders, the regulator will have no significance. "This will be a toothless body. Although this regulator may grant approvals it will fall short of taking authoritative action," said Ritwick Dutta, an environment lawyer.

Dutta said setting up a regulator could be done through a separate law. "Because that would mean that the EIA notification goes. The Centre can still do that by passing a new Act or new notifications under the Environment Protection Act not necessarily through Parliamentary legislation. However, to ensure that the body has the power to prosecute, it has to take the Parliament route," said Dutta.

Preparing an EIA report is a mandatory exercise to be conducted by highly polluting industries to examine the possible environmental impact of a project. The report also categorically states mitigation measures. For this, most industry players hire accredited consultants to prepare the report and this becomes a basis of the environmental clearance. At present, the Centre has formed expert appraisal committees (EACs) for various categories of projects to appraise environment clearance and stipulate conditions on project proponents while granting a green nod.

The Supreme Court had, on January 6, directed the government to appoint a national regulator under Section 3(3) of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. The court had suggested an independent body be set up for appraising projects, enforcing environmental clearance conditions and imposing penalties.

However, in April, the Union environment ministry had conveyed to the apex court that the regulator to be set up under the EPA could not be authorised to impose penalties without further legislation.

The Union Cabinet had formed an inter-ministerial panel in September to look into the feasibility of setting up a national green regulator based on the Supreme Court order. The members of the panel were Javadekar, Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister Ananth Kumar and Power and Coal Minister Piyush Goyal. The four-member panel will suggest the structure of the regulator and look into other measures. The idea of setting up an autonomous body for appraising projects was mooted by the United Progressive Alliance government in 2010.

The apex court ordered setting up such a body in a case related to stage-I forest clearance for the project of Lafarge Umiam Mining Private Ltd on July 6, 2011.