Environment Ministry Appoints Retired Odisha IFoS Officer Siddhanta Das As CEC Chairman

Bhubaneswar: Odisha Real Estate Regulatory Authority (ORERA) chairman Siddhanta Das has been appointed as the new chairman of Central Empowered Committee (CEC).

He is the first person to hold the top post in the permanent CEC, a central body set up to to flag cases of official non-compliance with orders of Supreme Court related to conservation. It earlier functioned on ad-hoc basis and worked as the watchdog for issues of environmental clearances and compliances.

Banumathi G, AIGF, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has been made member secretary of the apex committee with DG forests Chadra Prakash Goyal, Sunil Limaye and JR Bhatt as its members.

Set up in 2002, and reconstituted in 2008, the CEC has, in the words of the court, “rendered yeoman services to the cause of environment.” The committee was earlier under the Supreme Court. In September, it authorised the Environment Ministry to nominate its members and have the final say on the merit of its recommendations.

The committee now reports to the ministry.