NEW DELHI: A government panel on Wednesday cleared as many as 53 projects, including power, railways, roads and irrigation canals, while the environment ministry decided to ensure faster green clearance for border roads and infrastructure projects for ITBP- a paramilitary force which is deployed along the India-China border The ministry, in fact, put ITBP projects at par with border roads projects of the defence ministry (mainly Army) for faster green clearance. It had last year granted the defence ministry a general approval for all road projects within 100 km of India-China border.The decision to give faster clearance to border projects of ITBP comes in the backdrop of massive Chinese projects coming up across the border.Similar decision was also taken for border road projects along Indo-Bangladesh border, set to come up in West Bengal. These projects will be undertaken by Border Security Force (BSF) – the paramilitary force that is deployed along Indo-Bangladesh border.Power projects in Tamil Nadu and Telangana, a ropeway project in Junagadh in Gujarat and a number of public utility projects, including roads and irrigation canals, are among the 53 projects that got clearance from the standing committee of National Board for Wildlife (NBWL), chaired by environment and forests minister Prakash Javadekar.As far as border projects are concerned, the ministry accorded general approval under Section 2 of the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 for diversion of forest land required for creation of border security-related infrastructure such as roads, fencing, border outposts, floodlights and surveillance within five km from the international border.Construction of such infrastructure in border areas has been a long-pending demand of the paramilitary organisations such as BSF, Sahastra Seema Bal (SSB) and ITBP from the funds provided by the home ministry.