Bengaluru-based green Environmental Support Group (ESG) has demanded that the Centre redo the exercise and rework the High Powered Committee Report on ‘Reform of Environmental Laws’, yet again.
ESG has charged that the terms of reference are not clear and confound more than clarify, and should involve an inter-disciplinary committee consisting of women and men, experienced and expert members, and drawn from various geographies, supported by a democratic process and with sufficient time and space for public consultations nation-wide. It has added that the outcome would be recalled as a monumental effort that not only secured national interest, but also that of a world precariously edging towards runaway climate change induced impacts.
The High Level Committee, headed by former Union Cabinet Secretary T S R Subramanian, was set up by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change on August 29, 2014. The complex exercise of review of laws and judgements, and governance practices, followed by the formulation and presentation of a report with recommendations for amendments to existing laws, was to be completed within two months.
The committee was given a mandate to review all laws and judgements pertaining to the environment, wildlife and forest protection, and also those relating to pollution control, and then produce a report with specific recommendations for reforms in law and governance.
In its critique, the NGO said, “The exercise has been undertaken in a hurried manner, without sufficient inquiry into the relevant factors, without addressing the concerns of a range of communities, and especially those which are indigenous and natural resource dependent; and without considering the importance of consulting elected representatives from local government, legislatures and the Parliament.”
The report, hence, is not a comprehensively democratic effort, and promotes a scheme for environmental reforms, ESG charged. If adopted, it could result in widespread chaos in environmental governance and jurisprudence, and also cause irreversible damage to the environment, cause widespread loss of natural ecosystems and could further fuel fundamental violation of human rights in a country where discontents over environmental decisions have become increasingly contentious, it said.
