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Green activists have often described the environment ministry as a rubber stamp authority when it comes to giving clearances. They have some evidence in support of the claim—less than 1% of over 4,100 projects seeking forest clearance have been rejected in the last four years. According to official data, 4,103 proposals were received by the ministry of environment, forest and climate change (MoEFCC) between 1 January 2013 and 29 November 2016 for forest clearances.Of those, only 29 (0.7%) proposals were either rejected/returned or withdrawn—it effectively means that over 99% of the projects were either sanctioned, approved in-principle or were pending (at various levels). Projects which got forest clearance or were approved in-principle added up to 3,235—78.84% of the total proposals received in the same period.