Centre moves to set up body to fast-track environmental nods

The body will also discharge other tasks as may be entrusted to it by the Centre from time to time, the union environment ministry said in a draft notification.

New Delhi: The Union government has decided to set up a standing body on environment impact assessment which will appraise projects when state level impact assessment authorities are non-functional -- a move aimed at fast-tracking environmental clearances for projects.

Their membership varies by states, it usually includes independent experts and retired forest officials. (Representative Image)

The body will also discharge other tasks as may be entrusted to it by the Centre from time to time, the union environment ministry said in a draft notification issued on March 5 .

Currently, State Environmental Impact Assessment Authorities (SEIAAs) and State Expert Appraisal Committees (SEACs) are responsible for clearances for certain categories of projects like smaller mining projects, infrastructure and area development projects.

While the SEIAA is responsible for granting environmental clearances, the SEAC advises it in appraising the project.

Their membership varies by states, it usually includes independent experts and retired forest officials. However, delays in reconstituting these state-level bodies that have a tenure of three years, extendable by a year, often leads to corresponding delays in environmental clearances. Their term has been proposed to be extended to four years in the draft notification.

The standing body will have a similar structure like SEIAA/SEAC and will be called Standing Authority on Environment Impact Assessment (SAEIA) or Standing Committee on Environment Impact Appraisal (SCEIA).

“It has been observed that delayed reconstitution of SEIAA leads to complete halt in the EC process at the State levels and the pending proposals are transferred in bulk to the Centre leading to extended timelines and unwarranted delays in the appraisal of the projects, thereby impacting project timelines and investor confidence,” the draft adds.

The solution, according to the government, is SAEIA/SCEIA, which consists of ex-officio members nominated by the central government.

Apart from appraisal and approval of projects in the “absence of functional authority and till the constitution of new SEIAA/SEAC”, the draft states that the authority “may also be authorised to consider the projects that are delayed at the SEIAA/SEAC level”.

The draft also quantifies the delay in appraisal that may prompt the authority to step in -- 120 days.

The draft also adds that if the appraisal is done, and SEIAA then delays informing the project applicant, the authority may again step in.

The draft also adds a penalty clause for state level committees if they are not able to swiftly appraise projects, with delays being made one reason for the Union government to remove members of SEAC and SEIAA.

Legal experts have raised concerns and called for more oversight.

“The expert appraisal committees – both at the Central and State level – perform an extremely crucial role in the environmental clearance process. This is the only stage in the process where independent experts properly scrutinize the project proposal and related documents, undertake site visits, and ask for additional information where necessary,” said Shibani Ghosh, Advocate-on-Record, Supreme Court of India.

“If the proposed standing committee consists of ex-officio members appointed by the Union government, the independence and expert-driven nature of the appraisal stage may come under question,” she added.

Gurugram based forestry expert Chetan Agarwal said, “If the MoEF is so worried about timely environmental clearances for projects at times when the statutory SEAC and SEIAA committees have completed their tenure, but new committees have not been notified - rather than making new standing committees of ex-officio members, then can just provide a default automatic extension of tenure of the previous committees for the same six month periods for which the proposed to empower the standing committees. This will give adequate time to appoint new committees or reauthorise the old ones and carry on the environmental appraisal work without burdening already over-committed bureaucrats in the standing committees.”