Constitution and Jurisdiction of State Empowered Committee and District Empowered Committee

(1) The Government may by notification constitute a State Empowered Committee at the State level and District Empowered Committee for each District of the State consisting of such members as may be specified therein. (2) Jurisdiction of the State Empowered Committee and the District Empowered Committee- The class of investment for which or investment limits up to which the State Empowered Committee or a District Empowered Committee shall have jurisdiction to consider and dispose off applications for permission shall be such as may be prescribed by State Government. (3) Member of the Committee shall personally attend the meeting and in case he is unable to attend the meeting, he shall depute a senior level officer to attend the meeting with a written authorization to take appropriate decision in the meeting. (4) (a) The State Empowered Committee, or as the case may be, District Empowered Committee, shall examine the proposals for setting up any enterprise and shall take a decision and communicate its decision to the entrepreneur and the concerned departments or authorities within such time as may be prescribed by State Government. (b) The Committee shall meet at such times and in such places and shall adopt such procedure to transact its business as may be prescribed; (c) The State Empowered Committee shall examine the applications for giving concessions or grant exemption or relaxation from the provisions of any State law, take into consideration the comments of the departments, if any, hold discussions with the investors, wherever necessary and make recommendations to the Government. (d) The committee shall be the final authority for giving approval to the projects placed before it. The approvals given by the committee shall be binding on all the concerned departments and authorities and such departments or authorities shall issue necessary licenses within the stipulated time subject to the compliance of the provisions of the Central or State Act and the rules made therein by the entrepreneur. (e) If the competent authority fails to process and dispose of such applications within the period prescribed under section 10, notwithstanding anything contained in any Uttarakhand law, the State Empowered Committee or the District Empowered Committee, as the case may be shall have the power to consider and dispose of applications for permission under the Uttarakhand Law. For this purpose, reference to the Competent Authority in such law shall be construed as including the reference to the State Empowered Committee or the District Empowered Committee, as the case may be: Provided that where the Committee is unable to meet forthwith or otherwise consider the application, the Chairman of the Committee concerned may, for reasons to be recorded in writing, decide the application and submit a report of the action taken to it at the next meeting of the Committee and Subject to any decision of the Committee, the decision of the Chairman on such application shall, for all purposes, be deemed to be the decision of the Committee concerned under this section. (5) The State Empowered Committee or the District Empowered Committee, as the case may be, shall review the status of the applications of Joint Application Form-2 and, if necessary, on such cases, where the Competent Authority fails to dispose of the Joint application Form-2 within the prescribed time limit under section 10 of the Act, it may take a decision regarding the deemed acceptance under section 9 of the Act.