Prof D Mukherjee
World Environment Day (WED) has been celebrated on June 5, 2024 and hosted by Saudi Arabia under the theme ‘Land Restoration, Desertification and Drought Resilience’. The 45th WED 2018 was hosted by India under the theme ‘Beat Plastic Pollution’. WED World is a global platform for creating awareness and inspiring the global village of UN Member countries to create environmentally sustainable world and more than 150 countries participate in this United Nations international day, June 5 annually. This celebration is part of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) since its inception 1973. This writes up discourses on Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) and Environment Compliance followed by Indian Inc. India Inc. has shown a disappointing picture of EIAs current status and environment compliance. According to the ‘Prime Database’, 2023, out of 1,000 top notch listed companies, 122 companies conducted EIAs of the projects undertaken by them in Financial Year 2023 evident from their ‘Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report’.
Further, 124 companies disclosed having one or more operations or offices or around ecologically sensitive zones such as wildlife sanctuaries, biodiversity hospitals, forest, coastal areas etc submission of EIAs and compliance for obtaining environment clearance or approval. Besides, 51companies are reported to have been non-compliant with specific environment legislations and 34 companies are ordered by case hearing authorities to pay penalties for noncompliance or violations of the environment compliance standards. It is mentionable that cases of violations of non-compliance mostly pertain to the provisions of Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981, Water (Prevention and Control Prevention) Act ,1974 Environment Protection Act,1986 and Hazardous Waste Management and Handling Rules, 1989 /2016 which are tried either by the National Green Tribunal or State Pollution Control Board depending the nature and type of violations and non-compliance.
The EIA process is in essence meant to carry out a cost benefit analysis of the proposed projects and assess the benefits of developmental activities in relation to their adverse impact on the environment before applying for obtaining approval environment clearance. For the purpose of enforcement of EIAs for projects and standardization of environmental clearance, the “Environment Impact Assessment Notification 19941 was issued in 1994. Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is a process of evaluating the likely environmental impacts of a proposed project or development, taking into cognizance inter-related socio-economic, cultural and human-health impacts in terms of benefits and adversaries. EIA is a mechanism to assess the positive and negative environmental, economic, and social impacts of a project in order to predict the environmental impacts of a project in the pre-planning stage itself so that decisions can be taken to reduce the adverse impacts.
EIA in India is statutorily mandated by the Environment Protection Act, 1986 which contains various provisions on EIA methodology and process. Till 1994, environmental clearance from the Central Government was an administrative decision and lacked legislative support. The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) notified new EIA legislation in September 2006. The notification makes it mandatory for various projects such as mining, thermal power plants, river valley, infrastructure (road, highway, ports, harbours and airports) and industries including very small electroplating or foundry units to get environment clearance. However, unlike the EIA Notification of 1994, the new legislation has put the onus of clearing projects on the state government depending on the size and capacity of the project. EIA provides a cost-effective method to eliminate or minimize the adverse impact of developmental projects. It enables the decision makers to analyse the effect of developmental activities on the environment well before the developmental project is approved and implemented. Environmental compliance is a critical part of environment regulations. While regulatory actions have been prioritizing economic growth for several decades, but the costs of environmental degradation likely to be caused by industrial and developmental projects are no longer ignorable. These issues become politically and economically salient in recent years. It seems to be a fate accompli that India has to pay heavy price by sacrificing her environment for bringing about economic development. Development and the environment have always been viewed as two didactic halves. Any industrial project or an infrastructural activity to be tagged as a ‘development project’ needs serious consideration of the adverse impact of a proposed development project on the environment and comprehensive assessment of the same.
To call a spade a spade, higher the GDP, higher the development sounds theoretical and it is perhaps difficult to ascertain the actual cost of sacrifice of environment for so called economic development. In simplicity, priorities focus on pursuing bringing about improvement in GDP model is based purely on economic rationale to pursue a project without factoring the actual cost to the environment and subsequently the allied impacts on society in long term sustainability. It may be reiterated on the adverse effects of a project outweighing the proposed benefits, the clearances should not be granted and the project needs to be relocated or terminated which is strong spot of the genesis of EIAs methodology. For the purpose of enforcement of EIAs for proposed projects and standardization of environmental clearance norms, the ‘Environment Impact Assessment Notification 19941’ was issued under Section 3 and Rule 5 of the Environment Protection Act, 1986 by the Ministry of Environment and Forests. This Notification mandated any private consultants to carry out EIAs recognized by the government as an EIA assessment agent. There is hardly any rider on the consultant’s relation to the promoters of the project that they will be assessing. This allows project developers to constitute a consultancy agency specifically for the purpose of carrying out their EIAs. This allows consultants with no expertise and/or corrupt and mala-fide consultants to draft EIAs with no interest whatsoever in weighing the cost benefit analysis and merely passing EIAs to legalise any project to take off.
There are instances that a subsidiary company is incorporated with an object to primarily engage in EIAs and EIAs certified by such subsidiary of the parent company is valid and parent company can easily submit such report as ‘Environment Compliance’ to the appropriate authorities for obtaining clearance and approval of the concerned projects(s). The Environment Protection Act, 1986 is legally toothless with no provisions pertaining to justifiable environment clearances to the proposed projects. The 1997 amendment to the 1996 Notification, mandated public hearings, with detailed proceedings for the inquiry, however, it has become a statutory obligation that has rarely been complied with. Public hearings are procedural norms, having no legal teeth hearing the case relating to granting or rejection of a project. Further the only obligation of the Central and State Pollution control board is to hold a public hearing and an inspection of the facility is optional. There have been complaints that the inquiry is done in a perfunctory manner and the object behind the provisions is defeated as public opinion is disregarded. This has been highlighted in Utkarsh Mandal vs. Union of India case where the Delhi High Court has held that a public hearing must be respected. In Centre for Social Justice vs. Union of India the Gujarat High Court held that the minutes of the public hearing must be disclosed to anyone seeking it and they have a right to appeal against the order granting environmental clearance under Section 11 of the National Environmental Appellate Authority Act 1997. The current stand of the law is that the project proponent is responsible for the preparation of the EIA statement, with the help of an external consultant or institution, which can be construed as any private body that conforms to the guidelines set out by the NRBPT. The guidelines in place are ambiguous and lack clarity. For instance, an article or material being hazardous in one state may not be the same in other states. There are instances of adoption of international environmental standards such as ISO 14001 which may be the benchmark for achieving improvement in organizational internal environmental impact. India is a severe victim of deforestation, biodiversity degradation, air and water pollution including mishandling of hazardous materials and fatal industrial gas. Oleum Gas Case and Bhopal Gas leak tragedy 1984 by Union Carbide are the glaring instances. It is on record that Summar 2024 has created havoc and adversely affected the whole country by and large and Mercury lodged a record high in Delhi that touched 52 degrees Celsius. Under the given circumstance, it is the need of the hour to formulate robust EIA policies and compliance by independent multidisciplinary professionals such as Environmental Scientists, Engineers and Town Planners, CAs, CMAs, CSs, Legal Experts and Economists. The existing legislations may suitably be amended in no time and given sharp legal teeth for protecting India from the claws of environmental pollution including climate and global warming.
(The author is a Bangalore Based Educationist and Management Scientist)
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