New rules let India start roads, railways in forests pre-clearance
India's Union environment ministry just rolled out the Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Amendment Rules, 2025, tweaking how forests are managed for big projects.
Starting August 31, the Centre can now green-light certain activities for roads and railways even before full forest clearance is given.
Plus, "working permission" covers more early-stage work after initial approval—though actual road surfacing or laying railway tracks still needs a special nod.
Defense projects get offline shortcut
Defense and strategic projects get a shortcut—they can apply offline instead of online.
The rules also make it easier to mine critical minerals by providing special dispensation for compensatory afforestation on degraded forest land, at least double in extent.
Now, afforestation on degraded land is encouraged but doesn't automatically turn that land into protected forest.
Overall, these changes try to fast-track important projects.