Ministry to conduct impact study

In a major policy change, the environment ministry will conduct environment impact studies for big ticket projects instead of the project proponents.

Updated on: Jul 7, 2011, 01:26:07 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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In a major policy change, the environment ministry will conduct environment impact studies for big ticket projects instead of the project proponents.

The environment impact study (EIA) forms the basis for ministry’s Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) to approve or reject a project. Under the existing rules, the project proponents are required to get the EIA conducted through an accredited agency.

The environment ministry wants to change the format for projects in eco-sensitive zones and multi-sectoral projects. It will mean that for projects in eco-sensitive zone of Ganga or huge investment projects such as Posco, the ministry will get the EIA studies conducted. Posco is a multi-sectoral project as the company is developing a steel plant, a captive power plant and a port.

Vedanta

An environment ministry committee in August 2010 had said the EIA for bauxite mining for Vedanta refinery in Lanjigarh did not study full impact on the local hydrology.

It also failed to evaluate the socio-economical impact on local and their cultural heritage.

The EIA did not had data on quality of water resources, impacting of mining on surface water from Nyamgiri Hills and had no maps to show impact of mining on the hill.

Posco

An environment ministry committee in 2010 said the original EIA failed to provide a realistic picture of impact of a steel plant, a captive power plant and a port in Jagatsinghpur district.

Three members of the four member committee had citied deficiency in data in the EIA for scrapping the environment clearance, which the ministry did not agree.

“We will ask the agencies to conduct the studies rather than depending on project proponents for the EIA,” environment minister Jairam Ramesh said. “It will not require any change in the rules”.

The move is aimed to make the EIA impartial as there is perceived conflict of interest in project proponents also evaluating the impact of the project on environment. “No company says that its project will adversely impact the environment. Most of the EIAs are on the steps companies will take to reduce the impact on environment,” said a senior ministry said.

Also questions have been raised over EIAs conducted for major projects such as Posco’s Steel Plant and bauxite mining for Vedanta in Orissa and Jaitapur Nuclear Power Plant in Maharashtra. There have also been instances of similar appearing EIAs been submitted for different projects. “We have tried to improve the EIA by getting the consultants accredited,” Ramesh said.

To start with, the ministry will conduct EIAs for projects being proposed in over 50 ecologically sensitive areas and projects coming up in coastal belt.

Adding another dimension to environmental governance, the ministry has decided to conduct cumulative impact assessments of all major river basins and eco-sensitive zones done to estimate their carrying capacity.

One such assessment has been done by IIT Roorkee for rivers Bhagirathi and Alakananda in the Ganga river basin. The IIT has recommended restrictions on allowing number of hydro power projects on these rivers and ensure a minimum water flow. “The assessment will be the bible for EAC before deciding a project on these two rivers,” Ramesh said. The EAC evaluates each project for environment clearance and submits its recommendations to the ministry.

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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