The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) before the national lockdown has issued the Draft Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification 2020 for public consideration and comments. The draft notification is issued under the powers vested in the central government under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 to take all such measures for “protecting and improving the quality of the environment”. India notified its first EIA norms in 1994, setting in place a legal framework for regulating activities that access, utilise, and affect (pollute) natural resources. Every development project has been required to go through the EIA process for obtaining prior environmental clearance ever since. The 1994 EIA notification was replaced with a modified draft in 2006. The proposed draft notification is to incorporate the amendments and relevant court orders issued since 2006, and to make the EIA “process more transparent and expedient.”
Key Changes under the Draft EIA
From bare reading it appears that the draft proposes new regime, which dilute EIA norms and public participation, protect project proponents, dilutes the existing mandatory provisions to discretionary ones, safeguarding violators and bring unaccountability and non transparency. However, the Government argues that the new draft notification is being brought in order to make the process more transparent and expedient by the implementation of an online system, further delegation, rationalisation and standardisation of the process. The Key features of the proposed notification include:
The draft has added almost sixty new definitions. The 2006 notification did not have any definitions clause, which made it difficult to ascertain the meaning of various terms used in the notification ;
The draft mentions two types of approvals for e.g. prior environment clearance with expert committee’s appraisal and environmental permission without an expert committee’s appraisal for different category of projects;
All infrastructure projects and activities will be divided into three categories based on their potential social and environmental impacts and the extent of such impact;
The draft proposed new expert body, namely, ‘the Technical Expert Committee’. The sole function of the TEC is categorising and re-categorising of projects as A, B1 and B2 on scientific principles on a regular basis. At present this is done by the environment ministry;
The draft exempts certain projects from public consultation. These include all building, construction and area development projects, inland waterways, expansion or widening of national highways, and modernisation of irrigation projects;
The draft allows for postfacto approval for projects, meaning that the clearances for projects can be awarded even if they have started construction without securing environmental clearances;
The draft seeks project promoter to file a compliance report once a year, explaining the activities carried out by them according to the allotted permissions. The 2006 EIA notification asks the promoters to file a compliance report every six months.
The draft proposes environment clearance validity for three phases with increased duration. The phases are construction or installation, operation and redundancy, closure and dismantling. Under the draft validity for mining projects will be increased to 50 years (currently 30), river valley projects to 15 (currently 10), and all others to 10 (currently seven);
The draft notification proposes new norm “Dealing with violation cases”, it states that cognizance of environmental violations will be taken in four ways; suo moto application of the project proponent; or reporting by any government authority; found during the appraisal by Appraisal Committee; or any violation found during the processing of the application, if any, by the regulatory authority;
The draft notification seeks to fast forward clearances by digitising the process and standardising the approvals needed.
Issues in draft EIA Notification 2020
The eighty three page long draft notification consists of various new proposals and changes, which executive needs to revisit before its finalisation for betterment of environment protection. The major issues pertaining to draft notifications are as follows:
Categorisation of Projects: Under the draft notification, all projects and activities have been divided into three categories – ‘A’, ‘B1’, and ‘B2’ based on “the potential social and environmental impacts and spatial extent of these impacts” due to which 25 red and orange industries will be moved from Category A (which needs expert appraisal) to Category B1 or B2, which requires lesser EIA processes. These industries, including chemical processing and acid manufacturing, will be brought under Category B2, which doesn’t need public consultation. Real Estate projects are exempted from environmental clearances and public consultation by adding them under the B2 category, which goes contrary to NGT directions, wherein, the exemptions give to real estate projects in 2016 under 2006 notifications were set aside.
No Consultation with States: The draft notification does away with the requirement of committees to be set up “in consultation” with state governments and gives the central government more control over the constitution of state level regulatory authorities and expert committees. The central government can appoint and dismiss the members on all the state level committees responsible for appraisals and project approvals;
Public Hearing: Public consultations are a prominent feature of the EIA. It allows all concern to come together and discuss the environment impact through a meaningful and democratic process and brings transparency in the project. In Samarth Trust v. UOI, W.P. (Civil) 9317 of 2009 the Delhi high court had considered EIAs “a part of participatory justice in which the voice is given to the voiceless and it is like a jan sunwai, where the community is the jury.” The draft notification is to do away with the mandatory process of public consultation for a wide range of projects for e.g. irrigation, acid and fibre manufacturers, bio-medical waste treatment plants, building construction, all projects concerning national defense and security or involving “other strategic considerations” as determined by the central government. The exclusion of public consultation implies that local and indigenous communities will have no representation or platform to raise their voice or grievances. The draft also proposes to reduce the public commenting period from 30 days to 20 days and requires that the public hearing process be completed in 40 days, compared to 45 days under the 2006 notification. The reduction of time would particularly pose a problem in those areas where information is not easily accessible or areas in which people are not that well aware of the process itself.;
Post facto Approval: The draft notification allows for post-facto approval for projects, meaning that the clearances for projects can be awarded even if they have started construction without securing environmental clearances, which violates ‘precautionary principle’ on which the EIA notification is grounded and the orders of the National Green Tribunal which had ruled against post-facto approvals. The Apex Court recently also struck down ex post fact grant of EC in Alembic Pharmaceuticals Ltd. v. Rohit Prajapati & Ors, Civil Appeal No. 1526 of 2016, wherein the Court held that the concept of an ex post facto EC is in derogation of the fundamental principles of environmental jurisprudence and is an anathema to the EIA notification dated 27 January 1994… The reason why a retrospective EC or an ex post facto clearance is alien to environmental jurisprudence is that before the issuance of an EC, the statutory notification warrants a careful application of mind, besides a study into the likely consequences of a proposed activity on the environment. An EC can be issued only after various stages of the decision-making process have been completed. ;
Compliance: The new notification requires the promoter to submit a report only once every year. During this period, certain irreversible environmental, social or health consequences of the project could go unnoticed because of the extended reporting time. However, providing a longer period for filing reports can lead to disastrous consequences. In such a situation, the concerned authority will not have the opportunity to question the promoters for not following the terms of clearance. The only remedy would be to impose a fine or punishment; but that would not reverse the detrimental consequences on the environment. The notification requires the promoters to file the documents on which the environmental impact is to be assessed. This leaves a lot of room for promoters to pick and choose the data and information which is to be supplied.
This draft seems to be appeasing the business and economic interests over environmental interests. The draft notification if issued in current format will be a mockery for the country’s environmental jurisprudence. This will make the process of ‘environment clearance’ redundant and a rubber stamp approval. Therefore, the Government needs to revisit the entire draft notification and make its provisions more transparent, democratic, pro environment and in compliance of international norms and Court directions.
Vaibhav Choudhary, Managing Partner, YHprum Legal.
