Time to decision
How long clearance takes
Each duration runs from the first step in a proposal’s appraisal history, the dated record of steps the portal keeps for it, to the step at which the authority granted or refused what was applied for. The register also gives a submission date, but that date moves forward whenever a proposal is submitted again, and it differs from the first step in the history for a third of the register.
The portal sometimes delists a proposal automatically and later revives it. Nothing is pending with the authority while a proposal is delisted, so those days are subtracted from its duration. They come to 7,19,226 days across 7,696 proposals.
- Environmental clearances measured
- 47,399
- Median days to environmental clearance
- 134
- Middle half of environmental clearances
- 77–223 days
- All decided proposals measured
- 58,235
These figures cover the 74,035 proposals for which this instrument holds a dated appraisal history, which is 80% of the register. Of those, 58,235 have been decided and 11,343 are still open. Another 4,457 closed without a decision, because they were returned, withdrawn or pulled back by the proponent, so they have no time to decision and are no longer waiting for one. The proposals without a dated history are left out of these figures, and almost all of them are among the register’s earliest filings.
By what was decided
Terms of Reference (ToR) are set early in an appraisal and fix the scope of the environmental impact study a project must carry out, while an environmental clearance is the final decision on the project. The two involve different work and take different lengths of time, so each is measured separately.
- Environmental clearance134 days · 47,399 proposals
- Decision type not recorded87 days · 330 proposals
- Terms of Reference49 days · 10,495 proposals
By sector
Only environmental clearance decisions are counted here, so every sector is measured on the same kind of decision.
- Non-Coal Mining141 days · 35,331 proposals
- River Valley and Hydroelectric Projects137 days · 59 proposals
- INFRA-2124 days · 8,747 proposals
- Industrial Projects - 1115 days · 778 proposals
- Industrial Projects - 3111 days · 1,238 proposals
- INFRA-1104 days · 202 proposals
- Thermal Projects100 days · 88 proposals
- Industrial Projects - 287 days · 717 proposals
- Coal Mining87 days · 239 proposals
By phase
The portal can run several steps of an appraisal at the same time, so a proposal’s phases can overlap and their lengths add up to more than its total time. 25,014 of the 58,235 decided proposals had at least two phases running at once, and each phase is best read as a separate measure.
- Closed65 days · 7,718 proposals
- Appraisal55 days · 52,181 proposals
- Decided42 days · 343 proposals
- Query31 days · 27,293 proposals
- Verification27 days · 57,042 proposals
- Other22 days · 3,116 proposals
- Administrative15 days · 1,010 proposals
- Filed3 days · 21,138 proposals
Days from filing to decisionThe calendar days between the first recorded step on a proposal and the step at which the authority granted or refused what was applied for, minus any days the portal had the proposal automatically delisted. Terms of Reference and environmental clearance are decided on different timescales, so each is reported separately.
Days openThe calendar days between the first recorded step on a proposal and the date the register was last read, minus any days the proposal spent automatically delisted, which puts it on the same basis as the time to decision. It is counted only for proposals still open, since a proposal that was withdrawn, returned or delisted stopped its clock when it closed.
Days suspendedThe days during which the portal had automatically delisted a proposal that was later revived. Nothing is pending with the authority in that interval, so it is excluded from the time to decision.
A distribution is published only for a group of at least 30 decided proposals. The methodology describes how durations are measured