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In a major fillip to Swachh Bharat Mission, the environment ministry has given a blanket exemption to all solid waste management projects from taking prior environmental clearances. The exemption from prior environmental clearances for projects, barring landfill sites, comes as a major relief for the government’s cleanliness initiative as it would cut down the time taken by waste treatment projects to get off the ground. According to urban development ministry officials, the time taken, which was anywhere between six months and a year, would now be cut down by at least six months. The biggest problem the ministry of housing and urban affairs was facing in the implementation of solid waste treatment and processing projects was different rules for different facilities.