Union Environment Minister Anil Dave has said that he would look into a recent decision by a Ministry panel —tasked with assessing river valley and hydro-electric projects — to ignore objections by activist groups and individuals to projects in the final stage of environment clearance.
On December 30, a newly-constituted Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) noted that “…in general the EAC should not take any cognisance of such representations received from the any Civil Action Group during final appraisal.” This was necessary, according to the minutes of the meeting convened by the EAC, because several representations had an “anti-development attitude so that the projects are kept on hold or delayed and had financial implications for the developers in particular and to the nation in general.” The EAC, however, specified that if compelling or novel objections arose it could be forwarded by the Environment Ministry for the EAC’s consideration. According to the Environmental Protection Act, environmental clearance begins with a screening and scoping process, followed by a period of public consultation and finally, scrutiny of the documents, or even a site visit by the EAC.
“I will check if the EAC and Ministry had discussed this issue,” Mr. Dave told The Hindu over phone. “Public consultations cannot be dispensed with, but to have prolonged discussions is also not advisable.” Environment groups and activists have objected to the EAC’s decision, arguing that the quality of environmental impact assessment is frequently so poor that several environmental threats to a project become apparent after the public consultations are held.
Kanchi Kohli, an environmental researcher at the Centre for Policy Research said that the environment ministry — the parent of the EAC — had in October 2014 set a precedent by requiring that “fresh” objections to a project not be raised when being appraised by the EAC, unless it emerged that a project had supplied incorrect or misleading information.
“Many large projects, including POSCO’s steel plant in Odisha, Mahan’s coal mine in Singrauli, Madhya Pradesh, OPG’s power plant in Kutch, Gujarat, or the JSW power plant in Raigad, Maharashtra, have had to carry out major studies only after these were brought to the attention of the EACs..” Kohli noted in a critique of the 2014 notification.
