NEW DELHI: The NDA government has done away with an arbitrary environmental clearance mandated by the UPA for building large factories that industry captains had red-flagged with the Prime Minister ’s Office as a major deterrent for new investment projects . In a notification issued late last month, the environment ministry has exempted the building of large industrial sheds, schools, colleges and hostels of up to 150,000 square metres from seeking a prior green nod for construction In early 2013, the ministry had held that the building a factory was tantamount to undertaking a construction project and stipulated a prior environment clearance for any such industrial building with a built-up area of over 20,000 square metres.The order, issued under the watch of controversial UPA environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan, had jeopardised or scuttled several greenfield and brownfield investment plans of large manufacturing players, including MNC auto makers as getting such a clearance takes two years in a best-case scenario.The country’s largest auto maker Maruti Suzuki India Limited was even prosecuted by the Haryana government for starting work on its Rs 3,500 crore research and development facility in Rohtak without this nod and had to turn to courts."The new norms would help businesses build larger factories that enjoy economies of scale much faster," said a senior vice president of Indian subsidiary of a global auto player. "This green hurdle had made it difficult to build any plant over 5 acres of land and had forced some investors to explore alternate production hubs with lesser red tape as their return on investments shrinks with every month of delay," he said.Two weeks before PM Narendra Modi launched the Make In India campaign in September last year, the environment ministry steered by Prakash Javadekar had declared its intent to roll back this norm.The ministry had initially proposed that such a prior environmental clearance would only be required for projects over 20,000 square metres that involve residential or commercial buildings, hotels, hospitals and information technology or software development units and parks.However, it has opted to go for a negative list of projects in the final notification issued on December 22, stating that advance environmental clearances are not required for industrial sheds, schools, colleges and hostel for educational institutions. At the same time, the ministry said such new buildings must ensure environment management by putting in place systems for rainwater harvesting, solid and liquid waste management.The new norms also suggest that investors ‘may use recycled materials such as fly ash bricks’ for building new factories, according to the notification reviewed by ET.