MoEF violates its own rule, approves thermal power plant in polluted area

The environment ministry has violated its own regulation to grant approval to a mega thermal power project in highly polluted Korba district of Chattisgarh, resulting in the National Green Tribunal (NGT) canceling the approval. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Apr 22, 2013, 19:09:20 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The environment ministry has violated its own regulation to grant approval to a mega thermal power project in highly polluted Korba district of Chattisgarh, resulting in the National Green Tribunal (NGT) canceling the approval.

The tribunal also hinted at a possible scam in the ministry in granting clearances by stating that somehow the project proponent - Dheeru Powergen Private Limited --- knew in advance of the ministry's moratorium on highly polluted industrial areas including in Korba.

The ministry on 13, January 2010 had imposed a moratorium in different industrial areas for high pollution levels including Korba, which was ranked fifth most polluted place in India. The moratorium on Korba still continues.

Five days after the imposed was moratorium, the ministry issued environment approval to the project over-looking the observations related to high air and water pollution in Korba.

"This is a material internal contradiction between the two actions, that is to impose the moratorium on one hand and to breach the same on the other hand," a five member bench of the tribunal said, in its order.

The bench was amazed to find that the ministry considered radial distance of 15 kms from epicenter of Korba town for the purpose of environment impact. "There is no particular yardstick shown as to how only 15 km area may be identified as critically polluted zone," the bench said.

This 15 km was also the zone for moratorium on new industries around Korba. The ministry's expert appraisal committee (EAC) which examined the project before the moratorium was imposed had some inclination about it. The EAC clearly stated, in its project approval order, that the plant was beyond 15 kms and would not impact pollution levels of Korba.

The tribunal termed the EAC contention wrong and expressed its surprise over similarity between EAC's observation and the moratorium. The ministry had failed to detect this uncanny similarity and it became one of the reasons for the tribunal to scrap the approval given.

The bench also observed that the ministry used vague term such as "minimal damage" in its approval order which was granted before the company could submit its relief and rehabilitation plan and corporate social responsibility plan. Relief and rehabilitation cann be prescribed as post approval condition, the tribunal said.

The bench also said that the ministry overlooked certain material issues which were highlighted by locals during the public hearing for the project coming about 15 kms away from the Korba town.

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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