EIA needs to be more effective

E-Dialogue – 12.0 | EIA: Citizenry and Environment
New India and Environment Policies

The twelfth edition of E-Dialogues was based on Government of India’s Environment Impact Assessment draft proposal (EIA). Although policymakers claimed that the proposal was aimed at strengthening environmental laws and safeguarding the country’s greenery, a number of activists, scholars, experts and even the common people think otherwise. Paving the way for a number of controversial by laws, activists argue, the EIA not only weakens the country’s regulatory system on environmental issues but also allows private stakeholders to misuse these common, essential resources to their advantage and profit. In order to know more about what exactly the EIA is, Urban Update invited an illustrious panel for the Webinar. The panel consisted of Vimlendu Jha, Founder, Swecchha India; Bhavesh Singh, Environmental Coordinator, Aakhvi Consultants, Abhilasha Shrivastava, Former Research Biologist, Wildlife Institute of India (WII); Stalin Dayanand, Project Director, Vanashakti NGO; and Colonel CP Muthanna, President, Coorg Wildlife Society (CWS). The session was moderated by Kumar Dhananjay, Consulting Editor, Urban Update.
Dhananjay introduced the theme of the Webinar saying, “Activists have been arguing for a stronger environmental policy in India since decades. However, the EIA proposal sheds light on the willingness of the government to leave the fate of the country’s natural environment and wildlife in the hands of industrialists.” Stating that this will not only have a devastating effect in the near future on forests and wildlife in India, Dhananjay said that it will act as a catalyst for global climate change. To talk about this in detail, Dhananjay invited Vimlendu Jha to speak first.
Jha began by saying that the EIA 2020 is, in every possible way, detrimental to our environment, the people and their health. “India was placed 168th in the biennial Environment Performance Index 2020 released by Yale University. Since the past 7-8 years, India has also been experiencing a situation which calls for an ‘environment emergency’, particularly in its metropolises. Thus, the need of the hour was a policy that strengthens the environment governance model. But the EIA 2020 proposal does the exact opposite of that.” The EIA places ease of doing business as a more important factor for policies than conservation of the environment and can be seen as a compendium of violations, a book titled “How to kill the environment” instead.
Bhavesh Singh spoke next and called the EIA proposal a regressive departure from the need of the hour. Stating that the government has now exempted highway projects from getting an environment clearance as an example, Singh claimed that we are actually moving backwards in our march towards a strong environmental governance model. “This will give a free hand to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and the National Highway and Infrastructure Development Corporation (NHIDC) to build highways through forests in the name of development and urbanisation. This will not only have devastating effects on the ecosystems around cities but will also affect the people residing in these places of development.”
Abhilasha, a former research biologist at WII, said that working with the institute gave her a chance to work in forests across India. “The EIA 2020 proposal violates the constitutional right of Indian citizens to clean air, water and environment. The proposal also allows industries that may be detrimental to both the environment and the citizenry, to operate without clearances and continue to harm the environment.” She went on to talk about how harming the environment not only harms us and causes global warming but also affects the economy, not just in cities but also in small towns and villages. Thus, we need to look at the EIA not just as a danger to us but also to the world and its economy. Stalin Dayanand supplemented Abhilasha’s stance by stating that the Articles 48 (A) and 51-A (g) of the Indian Constitution put the responsibility of conserving the environment on the state and the duty on the citizens.
The EIA 2020 proposal removes people from the entire governance model and limits their right to protest against environmentally degrading activities even though India is a participatory democracy. Although India is a signatory to the 1992 Rio Convention on Biodiversity, Climate Change and Desertification, it does not uphold the basic requirement of the convention to use a precautionary approach in matters of the environment. “The EIA 2020 proposal does the exact opposite of that and is sanctioning and encouraging environmental violation in return for a meagre amount to be paid by industrialists as fines. “We should not just look at the EIA 2020 draft proposal, we should look through it and around it,” said Col Muthana. He said that the EIA proposal points to the fact that the country is heading towards a complete authoritarian rule in terms of environmental governance.
This has, he suspects, largely been a result of the actions of vested interest groups. Along with this, there is also a systematic effort to dilute the democratic process and norms, he feels. Earlier, only projects related to strengthening India’s armed forces were kept out of the purview of EIA and the Right to Information. However, the EIA 2020 proposal has now given a free hand to the government to term any activity as being ‘strategically important’ and push it out of people’s right to question and protest against such projects/activities.
Dhananjay concluded the topic by stating the importance of continuing to question such potentially destructive and detrimental laws and working towards safeguarding the environment for our future generations.