Protecting environment

The govt should revisit the draft EIA notification

The enormous flak received by the government’s draft notification on the environment impact assessment (EIA) of industrial and infrastructure projects is a clear indication that all is not well with it. Nearly two million objections have landed in the environment ministry, which had put out this draft for public comments, and more are pouring in. The stakeholders are pleading for more time to study the notification’s small print. Environment activists, notably, are not alone in assailing it. Many students, scientists, politicians, state governments, and even the United Nations Special Rapporteurs on sustainable environment have found fault with the notification. 

The common refrain of the objections is that the proposed changes in the norms for clearing development projects seem to give unduly greater importance to ease of doing business vis-à-vis protecting the environment and the safety of human beings. The existing system of compulsory public consultations (read consent of gram sabhas) is sought to be done away with for a wide range of projects. Worse still, certain kinds of activities are proposed to be either exempted from the EIA obligation or subjected to only mild scrutiny even if they are prima facie prone to disastrous mishaps. Over 25 red and orange labelled industries are planned to be shifted from Category A (needing strict appraisal by experts) to Categories B1 and B2, which require ecological impact evaluation without public consultation. These include many highly hazardous chemical-processing and acid-manufacturing units. This, clearly, is an invitation to calamities like the recent gas leak at the LG Polymer plant in Andhra Pradesh, where 12 persons died and many more were gravely injured, and the gas fire in Bagjhan, Assam, which continued for nearly two weeks, forcing mass translocation of people to safer places.  

Another sore point is the provision for granting post-project clearance. This will open the door for regularising many controversial projects that have come up without taking the requisite approvals. Besides, it will encourage wilful default on this count. Equally worrisome is the proposed exemption from publication of information or holding public consultations for projects marked by the Centre as “strategic” without specifying the criteria for such categorisation. This leaves room for arbitrariness in project categorisation. Unsurprisingly, about 500 scientists, researchers, and academicians, including teachers at several Indian Institutes of Technology, chose to admonish the EIA draft through an open letter to the environment ministry. They have called for the withdrawal of this notification, maintaining that it would jeopardise the country’s ecological and environmental security. 

In view of such an outrage, the environment ministry would do well to revisit the notification with an open mind, keeping the objections and valuable suggestions in mind. No doubt, the need to fast-track project clearance cannot be disputed. But the issues related to preserving ecology and people’s safety are no less critical. India has a dismally poor ranking on the World Environment Performance Index (2018), being placed at 177 among 180 countries. It cannot afford any further downgrading. The need, thus, is to strike a fine balance between the inherently conflicting issues of environment protection and economic development, giving due weight to both. The task may be tough, but there is no other way.