NGT’s Swatanter Kumar invokes Paris climate deal to quash green exemption to construction sector
Swatanter Kumar stayed the environment ministry’s notification exempting real estate projects having built-up area of up to 1,50,000 sq metres from mandatory environmental approval.
The National Green Tribunal has quashed the environment ministry’s decision to exempt the construction sector from environmental approval and said it violated India’s emission control obligations under the Paris climate deal.
The National Green Tribunal has quashed the environment ministry’s decision to exempt the construction sector from environmental approval. (Reuters File Photo)
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In apparently his last order before retirement tribunal’s chairperson, Swatanter Kumar stayed the ministry’s December 2016 notification exempting real estate projects having built-up area of up to 1,50,000 sq metres from mandatory environmental approval and asked the ministry to restore appraisal of construction projects under the Air and Water Acts.
The ministry’s notification was challenged in the tribunal by four petitioners on the ground that the exemption granted would be a “huge retrograde step in the area of environment conservation”. They also claimed that the notification was in violation of the Environment Protection Act.
“The notification also ignores some essential features like source of water, source of raw material, urban ecology, provision of no development zone and construction face impacts. These aspects have a direct bearing on protection of environment and keeping in line with the Principle of Sustainable Development,” Kumar said in the order on December 8, while invoking the Paris climate deal agreed by 195 nations in 2015.
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The tribunal also accused the government of diluting environment safeguards in the name of ‘ease of doing responsible business” under the grab of “housing for all” without having any mechanism for evaluation, assessment or monitoring of the environment impact of building and construction activity, considered one of the biggest contributors to air pollution.
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The tribunal also accused the government of diluting environment safeguards in the name of ‘ease of doing responsible business” under the grab of “housing for all” without having any mechanism for evaluation, assessment or monitoring of the environment impact of building and construction activity, considered one of the biggest contributors to air pollution.
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“The construction industry consumes enormous resources and has a significant energy footprint; the sector emits 22 per cent of India’s total annual carbon-dioxide emission,” the order read. It reprimanded the ministry for overlooking its own findings of incompetence of local authorities in appraising real estate projects.
The tribunal also said that the notification takes away the powers of the pollution control boards and committees to grant or refuse consent to operate to building and construction projects. “It further dilutes the entire environmental assessment framework under the EIA notification 2006, which has been periodically strengthened and amended by the numerous orders of this Hon’ble Tribunal,” the order read.
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It directed the ministry to re-examine its notification and take appropriate steps to delete, amend or rectify the clauses in light of the judgment.
“The environment ministry shall, particularly take care that the laudable social cause of ‘providing Housing to the poor’ does not get defeated by business, economic profitability with reference to ‘ease of doing business’, while particularly protecting the environment,” Kumar said.
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.
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