‘Public hearings for green clearance a sham’

A day after a public hearing to give environmental clearance to a 1,200 megawatt power project in Chhattisgarh ended in 20 minutes, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said the process was fixed in most cases.

Updated on: Jul 2, 2009, 24:57:23 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

A day after a public hearing to give environmental clearance to a 1,200 megawatt power project in Chhattisgarh ended in 20 minutes, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said the process was fixed in most cases.

“Either project proponents or influential NGOs fix the public hearing process,” Ramesh said while launching revamped websites of environment and forest clearances for the project.

On June 30, the public hearing for a project was conducted 35 km away from the project site though the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) rules state it should be held at the project site.

“Even before 1,000 people could raise their voices, the district collector declared the hearing closed,” said Himanshu Thakkar of Delhi-based NGO South Asian Network on Dams, Resources and People.

A few months ago in Jharkhand, the Uranium Corporation of India held a public hearing for a new mining project in its office and filled the room with employees an hour before the scheduled meeting. The hearing ended without the voice of the locals being heard but the meeting minutes stated people had agreed to the project.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had introduced public hearings in 2006 to ensure the voice of affected people are heard.

Despite complaints, the Environment Ministry has seldom taken action against officials for faking public hearings.

“The quality of the EIA is not of the desired level. I have received a lot of complaints against non-transparent public hearings. It appears to be a formality,” Ramesh said. He promised to improve its quality.

There is a huge disparity in rejection rates of projects under the Environment Protection Act and Forest Conservation Act. Under the former, the rejection rate is just 2 per cent while under the latter, it is 26 per cent.

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

Catch every big hit, every wicket with Crickit, a one stop destination for Live Scores, Match Stats, Infographics & much more. Explore now!

Stay updated with all top Cities including, Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and more across India. Stay informed on the latest happenings in World News along with Delhi Election 2025 and Delhi Election Result 2025 Live, New Delhi Election Result Live, Kalkaji Election Result Live at Hindustan Times.