Experts slam EIA 2020 draft for lack of public participation in vetting projects

Vijay Pinjarkar | TNN | May 5, 2020, 04:24 IST

Nagpur: More opposition is pouring in against the new draft Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) 2020, which the Centre plans to replace with EIA 2006. Experts who submitted their views to MoEFCC slammed the proposal for easing processes for business, simplifying rules for expansion of projects and doing away with public hearings for many projects.
EIA is an important procedure for ensuring that the likely effects of new developments on the environment are fully understood and taken into account before the development is allowed to go ahead.
A group of experts and researchers with Centre for Policy Research — Namati Environmental Justice Program said the EIA draft is not clear on third party monitoring. The CPR is working on action-based research projects with communities affected by non-compliance of environmental safeguards in four states — Gujarat, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh and Odisha.
“The draft notification mentions government institutions of national repute would conduct third party monitoring. However, there is ambiguity about these institutions, how will these be chosen, and in which instances will these institutions work. This is important because credibility of these institutions has also been questioned in several instances. The CAG report in 2016 had revealed there were inadequacies in monitoring by third party agencies in 201 projects,” says Manju Menon, senior fellow with CPR.
“Our experience of missing public participation in the proposed ‘third party’ monitoring experience of environmental violations shows that in 235 cases environmental non-compliance has affected close to 3 lakh people,” she adds.
Environment lawyer Manish Jeswani says the new EIA draft is all about ease of business, ignoring the threats nature is giving us in the form of micro organisms. It proposes to simplify rules for expansion of projects, doing away with public hearings for many types of projects.
“The proposed draft, if brought into effect in present form, will bring disaster for environment and ecology of the country. It will be a huge setback for environment, forests and wildlife as all are interconnected,” said Jeswani.
In environmental process, public hearing and consultation is an integral part, which gives right to locals and stakeholders to raise their voice and concern about getting affected by the probable impacts of the project. The new draft says units can be expanded without public consultation before getting environment clearance.
The draft exempts public consultations for projects including modernization of irrigation projects, buildings, construction and area development projects, inland waterways, expansion or widening of national highways, all projects concerning national defence and security or involving ‘other strategic considerations’ as determined by the central government, all linear projects like pipelines in border areas, and all the offshore projects located beyond 12 nautical miles.
Jeswani feels ‘strategic project’ word is newly introduced in latest draft by MoEFCC, which exempts such projects from public consultation, leaving ample room and scope for government to designate any project and bring it within the ambit of this category.
The lawyer says the new notification ends up diluting entire pubic consultation aspect by reducing the time period from 30 to 20 days within which public has to submit responses during a public hearing of any project seeking environment clearances. Due to short period people concerned will not get enough time to study and ascertain the environmental impact of projects.
EIA 2006 notification asked project proponents to submit a report every 6 months on compliances. However, the new draft extends it to once in a year. The proposed draft is relying heavily on self-certification by project proponents rather than strengthening monitoring environment conditions.
“Many provisions of proposed draft attempt to throttle various orders of NGT. The draft bypasses several judgements of courts only with a view to ease development against the principles of sustainable development. The draft reintroduces District Level Environment Assessment Authority (DEIAA) which was scrapped by NGT,” Jeswani said.
THE LOOPHOLES
* Details related to institutions of national repute needed to address challenges of conflict of interest and quality of assessments
* Need to disclose funding details for proposed monitoring protocol prior to accepting amendment
* Need for monitoring framework based on addressing impacts
* Missing public participation in proposed ‘third party’ monitoring
* Draft bypasses several court rulings to ease business against principles of sustainable development