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• Top executives of companies involved in the power sector today sought clarity from Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan on issues related to granting green clearances to projects to be set up in ecologically sensitive areas. A broad policy document will be unveiled on the issue of clearances to power projects in ecologically sensitive areas, she told the delegation of leading power company CEOs who sought clarity and timelines for grant of green licenses. The government's policy in sanctioning environment clearances will be "transparent, consistent and there will be complete clarity," Natarajan promised to the corporate heavyweights including Reliance Power Chairman Anil Ambani and Vedanta Group Chairman Anil Aggarwal.

• During their more than an hour long meeting, the Minister, however, told coroporate bigwigs that the mandate of her Ministry "is to protect the environment". "Within my mandate of protecting the environment, I have promised that our policy will be transparent and consistent and there will be complete clarity," she told reporters after the meeting. "One issue that has emerged from the meeting after hearing all of them is... that it may be useful now to put together broad policy guidelines for power sector from this Ministry," she said. "For example, what kind of policies that we insist on that are non-negotiable in terms of coal linkage, in terms of what kind of timeline can be expected," Natarajan said. "So, I think we can work out some broad policy framework which might be useful to future investors," she said and added that the Ministry will formulate separate guidelines for the power sector and the rest of the sectors.

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