Diluting the EIA Process Spells a Path of No Return

Context: The draft environmental impact assessment 2020 attempts to weaken critical checks and balances required for the conservation of the environment.

Dilution of Environment Impact Assessment process:

• EIA programme of 2006 :

• It attempted to decentralise the process of environmental clearances.
• It increased the number of projects that required an environmental clearance.
• Appraisal committees: At the level of both the Centre and States,its recommendations were made a qualification for sanctioning. 
• Public hearing: It also mandated that pollution control boards hold a public hearing to glean the concerns of those living around the site of a project.
• In practice, the 2006 notification also proved regressive.

• Opacity: The final EIA report was not made available to the public.
• Procedure for securing clearances for certain kinds of projects was accelerated; 
• Little scope available for independent judicial review. The courts also treated the views of the assessment authorities as sacrosanct. 
• Bureaucratic exercise : EIAs came to be regarded as a bureaucratic exercise that promoters of a project had to simply navigate through.

• Concerns related to New EIA draft 2020:

• Sweeping clearance apparatus:  to a number of critical projects that previously required an EIA of special rigour. 
• Less demanding processes: Some industries require expert appraisal under the 2006 notification, the new notification subject to less demanding processes. 

• These include aerial ropeways, metallurgical industries, and a raft of irrigation projects, etc.

• New proposal do not strengthen the expert appraisal committees leaving the body rudderless. 
• No public consultation for a slew of different sectors, negating an important feature of the 2006 notification. 
• Post-facto clearances: Companies which have commenced a project without a valid certificate will be allowed to regularise their operations by paying a fine. 

Way Forward:  

• Renewed vision for the country that sees the protection of the environment as not merely a value unto itself but as something even more foundational to our democracy. 
• We have to see ourselves as not distinct from the environment, but as an intrinsic part of it. 
• Our economic solutions have to subsume a commitment to our natural surroundings.