Companies directed to post environmental violations on their websites

The voluntary Corporate Environment Policy (CEP) of the companies has been made mandatory, albeit indirectly, with a condition that the companies' will post environmental violations on their websites.

Updated on: May 4, 2011, 21:12:33 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The voluntary Corporate Environment Policy (CEP) of the companies has been made mandatory, albeit indirectly, with a condition that the companies' will post environmental violations on their websites.

The environment ministry has issued an internal circular directing its statutory committees for environment and forest clearances at the centre and the states to include corporate environment policy as a mandatory condition for clearing both public and private sector projects.

The Environment Appraisal Committee grants environment clearance whereas Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) clears projects in the forest areas. No company can set up a project in India without their mandatory approval.

"There is a need to integrate the environmental concerns including those related to forestry, wildlife and bio-diversity, wherever applicable into the main stream of the corporate policies," the ministry's internal circular dated April 26 said.

The direction to these committees say that corporate environment policy will have to be part of the terms of reference (also called initial approval) for conducting environment impact studies of the projects submitted for approval.

In case of projects, where terms of reference have already been issued the circular says complying with the policy will be a mandatory condition in the final approval.

In view of this direction, the ministry wants all major public sector units (PSUs) and companies especially in coal, steel, cement and petroleum sectors to clearly stipulate their corporate environment policy.

The parameters for the policy have also been detailed in the circular. The policy should declare adherence with environment and forest clearance conditions and if government records any environmental violations they should be posted on the company's website and reported to the board of directors.

The companies will be required to designate a person responsible for implementing the policy and government clearance conditions. "These measures to secure compliance will surely protect the project stakeholders just like financial systems and audit mechanism protect the shareholders," the circular issued by S K Aggarwal said.

Earlier, the ministry had incorporated corporate social responsibility as an environmental approval condition for projects such as Posco in Orissa and Chiria mines in Jharkhand.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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