CENTRAL
EMPOWERED COMMITTEE (CEC) – POLITY
News:
Central Empowered
Committee: SC hands over its green watchdog committee to Environment Ministry
What's
in the news?
●
Two decades after it was set up by the
Supreme Court to flag cases of official non-compliance with its orders related
to conservation, the Central Empowered Committee (CEC) will now report to the
Environment Ministry which will nominate its members and have the final say on
the merit of its recommendations.
Key
takeaways:
●
The Environment Ministry notified the new
order on September 5 after the SC permitted the move “in the interest of all
the stakeholders”.
Central
Empowered Committee:
●
The Supreme Court recently handed over its
green watchdog committee, the Central Empowered Committee (CEC) to the Environment Ministry.
Setup
- It was set up in 2002, and reconstituted in 2008 by the Supreme Court.
Features:
●
It served as a watchdog for issues pertaining to environmental conservation and
compliance.
Recent
notification:
●
Instead of an ad hoc body, CEC should be
instituted as a permanent statutory body
on environmental issues under the administrative control of the Environmental
ministry.
●
The notification completely removes
non-governmental members from the committee.
●
The current CEC is chaired by retired IAS
officers and includes retired Forest service officers and lawyers and
naturalists.
○
In the revised structure all (chairperson,
a member secretary and three expert members) will now be civil servants
appointed by the Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC).
○
Term
- 3 years.
●
The committee will report to the ministry,
instead of the SC.
●
The ministry
will fund the committee.
●
The provision of having 2 NGOs in the
committee has been done away with.