All construction and other projects held up for want of environment clearance in Punjab are not likely to be expeditiously cleared as the Ministry of Environment and Forests has transferred only 24 out of 87 of them to the newly-constituted SEIAA and SEAC.

The rest 53 cases are likely to be cleared by the ministry itself, and most of these are housing, commercial and industrial projects. Sources said the fate of 87 construction projects and another three industrial projects was hanging in balance for more than a year.

"Maybe the ministry first wants to see the working of these bodies. It has not given us any reason and just told us that these 24 projects' clearance can be given by us and the rest will remain with them. We had earlier requested the ministry to transfer all the projects to us, as new bodies have been notified," said an officer.

He added that of the 24 cases transferred to the state, some of the big ones were Ansal Properties (Mohali), Omaxe (Rajpura-Ambala road), Vipul Limited (Ludhiana), Sun City (Mohali), UB Construction (Zirakpur), ATS Infrastructure (two projects in Dera Bassi), Ritesh Industries (Ludhiana Business Park) and AKM Enterprises (Ludhiana and Jalandhar projects).

The cases of environment clearance of these 24 projects will be taken up in the order of their listing in the Union ministry, and first they would be put before the committee for recommendation and then final clearance will be given, said sources, adding that it would take another two months for the cases to be cleared.