Serious concerns on the new EIA rules as public feedback process ends

The proposed new Environmental Impact Assessment rules 2020 not only undermines its parent act but also leaves wide scope for violation of the statute, said lawyers and environmentalists expressing their concerns, as the public feedback window on the controversial draft closes.

Besides, suggestions made by Parliamentary panels to improve India’s green governance standards were ignored while framing the draft, green activists alleged.

Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar on his part maintained that since it was only a draft, the criticisms were premature because the draft would be finalised after taking into consideration the feedback received, whereas environment secretary R P Gupta said the punishment proposed in the draft corresponded to the offence committed.

Punishment provisions are among the contentious ones in the new draft with critics like former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh claiming that such rules would open up what in-effect is an ex-post-facto approval of projects violating the green norms.

This, however, has been denied by Javadekar and Gupta who claimed there would be no such approval as the clearance would be prospective with punishment provisions for past action. Both, however, are silent on what would happen to the portion of the project that came up in violation of the rules.

"If the clearance permits the illegally constructed portion of the project to remain or the illegal operating part of the project to continue, and there is no direction for the demolition of the illegal portion or reduction of the illegally enhanced capacity, then it is not a prospective clearance. It is being granted ex post facto, and it is regularising the illegality committed by the project proponent," Ramesh said in one of his letters to Javadekar.

It appears from the processes proposed in clause-22 of the draft notification that the government's objective is to give all the violators an opportunity to regularize their illegal activities," wrote the former environment minister.

Clause 22 and 23 that respectively deal with violation and non-compliance of the rules describe financial penalty for violations."A distinction has been made between violation and non-compliance, which itself is a recipe for violation in perpetuity.

Also, there are provisions that would allow the violators to get away after paying some money,” Sanjay Upadhyay, an environmental lawyer told DH.

The draft leaves it to the state administrations to take action against project proponents violating the rules. But it does not take into account the reality that state green administration neither has wherewithal nor a good track record in punishing the violators.

"The Environment Protection Act, 1986 gives priority to environmental protection, business comes later. This notification is exactly opposite,” said Leo Saldanha from Environment Support Group, a Bengaluru based non-governmental organisation. “The ministry extensively consulted the corporates, but not the civil society groups, academia and most of the state pollution control boards.”