Separate panel to monitor environment clearances

After the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi (IIT) hinted at "conflict of interest" in environment ministry’s presence in appraisal and environment approval process, a separate body would be set up to look into the matter.

Updated on: Nov 30, 2010, 24:03:33 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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After the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi (IIT) hinted at "conflict of interest" in environment ministry’s presence in appraisal and environment approval process, a separate body would be set up to look into the matter.

As a result, the environment ministry has proposed the National Environment Assessment and Monitoring Authority (NEAMA) to bring in transparency, accountability and predictability in the clearance process.

Ministry's approval process has been questioned and its own committee on alleged environment violations in Posco's steel plant in Orissa termed the approval given to the project as faulty. This year alone, the National Environment Appellate Authority had quashed ministry's three environment approvals citing violation of norms. The IIT-Delhi, which was asked to examine the environment ministry’s approval process, said the presence of the ministry in the appraisal and approval of both Vedanta Resources and Posco lead to a "perception of conflict of interest".

Highlighting another loophole in the clearance process, the institute said the ministry is dependent on the project proponent for the data and there is no mechanism to validate the same. "Lack of mechanisms to validate the data provided by the project proponent might lead to subjectivity," the IIT's report said.

Working on the IIT recommendation, the ministry floated framework of NEAMA in place of earlier proposed National Environment Protection Authority, whose independence was being opposed by the ministry officials.

The IIT's view has also been endorsed by the Planning Commission, which stressed an autonomous, multi-disciplinary appraisal and monitoring agency with scientific rigour.

The new agency will conduct both environment and coastal regulation clearances. The ministry has also proposed to increase penalties and fast track them for alleged environment violations under the Environment Protection Act.

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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