Environment

Centre made over 100 changes in Environment Impact Assessment Notification in past 5 years

The year 2022-23 saw the highest number of changes introduced in the notification 

 
By Nivit Kumar Yadav, Anubha Aggarwal
Published: Monday 10 April 2023
Photo: istock photo

The Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification, 2006, is the governing legal instrument to grant green clearance for establishment or expansion of an industry on the basis of the expected environmental impact of the project. The notification was introduced in 1994, and after several amendments, was revised in 2006.

One positive of the 2006 EIA notification is its dynamism to accommodate changes in its provisions and processes as per the requirement of the changing times. However, this characteristic of the legal instrument seems to have been exploited.

Instead of ensuring stricter implementation of the provisions, governments, over the years, have made concerted efforts to dilute the processes and norms to ease establishment and expansion of industries and to accommodate industries that generate pollution.

Records of the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) show that in the last five years, some 110 changes have been introduced in the 2006 EIA notification vide office memorandums.

Office memorandums are available in public domain but the changes introduced in them do not have to undergo public consultation since they are not considered an act of change in law.

Some of these changes have been challenged in the National Green Tribunal. Others have skipped the public eye and been integrated with the 2006 EIA notification. It is to be noted that some of the changes introduced are the same provisions that were found to be objectionable in the draft 2020 EIA notification.

The year 2022-23 saw the highest number of changes introduced in the 2006 notification in the last five years. Not all the office memorandums introduced were direct changes in the notification but clarification of the existing provisions or of some other office memorandum.

Nonetheless, the practice of introduction of changes in the EIA notification vide office memorandums at this pace should be a matter of public discourse. Some of the major changes in the 2006 EIA notification introduced vide Office Memorandums over the years are:

Rating system for state environment impact assessment authority (SEIAA): On January 17, 2022, the Centre rolled out a star-rating system for state environment impact assessment authorities (SEIAAs) to make them more efficient, transparent and accountable.

A closer look, though, suggests that the rating system, instead, penalises them for adhering to the 2006 EIA notification, the blueprint for giving green nod to projects.

The rating system, to be updated every month, is based on seven parameters that are geared towards pressurising SEIAAs to fast-track clearances, even if it means without due diligence. For example, as per one of the parameters, if the average time of assessing application is under 80 days, the concerned SEIAA gets the maximum (two points), but if the average time is 120 days or more, the SEIAA gets a zero.

Another parameter under the ranking system penalises SEIAAs if they ask the project proponents for essential details (this is the information needed to understand the environmental cost of the project). If an SEIAA asks for essential details more than once in less than 10 per cent of the applications, it gets the maximum (1 point). If it asks essential details more than once in 30 per cent of the cases or more, it gets a zero.

The faulty compliance module: MoEFCC released a notification on June 14, 2022, detailing a compliance module for projects granted environmental clearance under the 2006 EIA notification.

The module streamlines the compliance and monitoring process and avoids any delays in submission of the compliance reports to regulatory authorities.

This notification is a step forward in streamlining the process and avoiding any gaps in the timely submission of compliance reports. However, it is not clear if these reports and supporting documents will be accessible to the public. Proponents upload this information on MoEFCC’s Parivesh portal, using their unique credentials and, therefore, it may not be available in the public domain.

Second, the compliance module does ensure that the proof of compliance is available for perusal of the authorities. Checks and balances are needed to ensure that the proponent submits complete and quality information.

Third, the ministry needs to ensure that this online submission of compliance reports does not end up as another revenue generation model for consultants hired for the work. Rather, the data collated from these reports should actually be used to take strict actions against violators.

Lastly, there needs to be a publicly accessible platform where environmental and social impacts of projects are collated in a standardised format to understand the cumulative impact of industrial activity in the region.

Undermining the public hearing process: The 2006 EIA notification has defined the sectors that have to undergo the process of public hearing for project appraisal. The process involves public consultation wherein comments on the draft EIA report uploaded on the ministry’s website are considered by the proponent.

The second component of it is “public hearing”, wherein advertisement is given in the local newspapers to hold a gathering, presided over by the district magistrate/district collector/deputy commissioner, to hear the concerns of the stakeholders, especially the local residents, on the project.

 

Source: CSE analysis

The ministry, vide an office memorandum in October 2021, allowed for 20 per cent expansion in production in mining of minor minerals (iron, manganese, bauxite and limestone) on the basis of only public consultation.

The public hearing process was again diluted in case of legacy mining cases that were granted environmental clearance under the 1994 EIA notification. These projects now only have to conduct public consultation, not follow the entire process of public hearing, as per the 2006 EIA notification.

The public consultation does not mandate the proponent to intimate the stakeholders about the upcoming project or its expansion or modification via any popular medium. The EIA/environmental management plan report is simply uploaded on the public portals to be accessed by the public.

Extra details sought are viewed as a burden: The Central and state authorities designated to give environmental clearance to the projects can seek extra and additional details from the project proponent if needed, as per the provisions of the 2006 EIA notification.

However, in an office memorandum in June 2021, MoEFCC said that review of pendency at divisional level showed that there was non-uniformity in the Extra Details Sought (EDS) and Additional Details Sought (ADS) from the proponent, and directed the authorities to refrain from asking EDS and ADS that are not relevant to the project appraisal. The direction undermined the legitimacy of the experts that the ministry nominates for project appraisal.

Change in coal source without amendment: The source of coal for combustion in a coal thermal power plant is required for estimating the emissions from transport of the coal from mine to the coal thermal power plant. In November 2020, the ministry allowed all coal thermal power plants to change coal source without accounting for any possible increase in emissions from its long distance transport.

The direction by the government was to increase India’s reliance on domestic coal over imported coal. The power plants are also now allowed to change one domestic coal source to another without any concerns about the environmental implication of long distance coal transport.

In another direction, the ministry allowed for road transport of coal until the railway lines are laid in the area. This takes away the urgency of laying the railway network for less intensive emissions from coal transport.

Violation cases get recognition under the 2006 EIA notification: In December 2017, MoEFCC made provision to grant “post-facto” clearance to the projects that are in violation of the 2006 EIA notification.

Later, in July 2021, MoEFCC issued a standard operating procedure to regulate the projects under violations. However, the procedure not only gives legitimacy to the ongoing violations but also has provision to accommodate future violations, thus effectively compromising the “zero-tolerance for violation” stance.

Restore the sanctity

The environmental safeguards are famously viewed as bottlenecks in the “ease of doing business” by project proponents and governments alike.

Ironically, the same ministry that framed these environmental regulations has been instrumental in pushing to dismantle and dismiss them. The 2006 EIA notification has been the instrument to introduce all these changes in the existing environmental regime.

The problem is not so much the changes, but how these changes are being introduced without wider public consultation, effectively establishing the hegemony of the Central government.

The office memorandum is not open to public for comments and can only be challenged in the National Green Tribunal. Not only is the introduction of such changes in EIA notification vide office memorandum (instead of amendment to the notification) unlawful but also removes public say from the process.

Several of the changes introduced vide office memorandums are problematic since they disturb the precarious balance between ecology and development. Since these decisions are harmful to the environment, they need scrutiny of Parliament.

Therefore, the government should uplift of the status of EIA from a notification to a rule under the Environment Protection Act to restore the sanctity of the environmental impact assessment regime.

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