Tag: Ministry of Environment

Karnataka’s stand on New EIA Draft

EIA Draft, 2020

New updates to the Environmental Impact Assessment Draft, 2020 notice set out the process for companies to determine the economic and environmental effects of their planned operations and the method by which they will be evaluated by expert committees appointed by the Ministry of the Environment.

Why is the draft problematic?

The current draft breaches many provisions of the Forest Rights Act, 2006, the Prevention of Genocide Act, 1989, as well as other legislation protecting local communities’ rights. The draft infringes the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.

The legislation also limits the role of environmental consultants and scientists in environmental clearance systems.

Draft EIA 2020 has a description issue. It provides precise definitions of eco-sensitive areas and also tends to leave several protected areas out of its definition, such as wetlands, coasts, reserve forests, village forests etc.

Definition indirectly favours the polluters and violators and ignores the conditions regarding environment violating projects which are approved by regulatory authority.

The deforestation for future initiatives will reduce carbon sinks and the habitat loss of ecologically associated biodiversity (inclusive humans) will also increase. It all would result in a further deterioration of the environmental and ecological equilibrium, leading to a disaster.

It can be characterized by the easiness, instead of common people’s rights, but of manufacturing, company, company, capitalism. As more than 40 hazardous projects have been discharged from public discussion.

Karnataka’s upfront

As the EIA draft notification was published in two languages, i.e. Hindi and English concerning official languages act by the Central Government. This subsequently led in raising of many objections against it, regarding its publicity.

Karnataka also lifted its voice against the same by filing a petition i.e. United Conservation Movement Charitable and Welfare Trust(r) v. Union of India[1]. Petitioners claimed that, the draft notification breaches the former practices and lacked sufficient publicity. The draft was not published in vernacular languages and was only made available on official website of Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. Also, inadequate time was provided by the centre, to the public for sharing their views and opinions.

Therefore, Karnataka High Court restrain the Central Government from publishing the EIA Daft final Notification i.e. passing the legislation, provided to lend reasonable time to public in order to file objections and send feedback regarding the draft. Also, to translate the draft in all the 22 languages which are recognised by the schedule 8 of Indian Constitution. Union Ministry of Environment was asked to take permissible necessary steps concerning impugned EIA draft notification. The Government was cautioned regarding the publicising the controversial draft otherwise, court will pass a stay order through an interim prayer (was verbally mentioned by the bench).

Hence, the Government cannot proceed with publishing the final draft notification without verifying and satisfying the plea of petitioners.

Karnataka’s united Conservation Movement (UCM) has begun an online petition calling on the public to demand and seek an enhanced and impugned EIA. The EIA 2020 draft tends to encourage increased emissions, by diluting restrictions on manufacturing and construction activities. In this era of tremendous pollution in our city areas, the EIA 2020 needs to be improved, rather than permitting over 30 criteria that dilute the reports for more than 25 hazardous industries.

Ecological scientists and environmentalists in Karnataka warns that diluting EIA will be a direction towards disaster. This will harm the Indian Biodiversity hotspots especially the sensitive areas of Western Ghats which is ecologically fragile and is already degrading.

Conclusion:

EIA is defined by the UNEP as a tool used to identify the environmental, social and economic impacts of a project prior to decision-making. It involves public opinion regarding likely environmental impacts of a proposed project with an aim to reduce adverse impacts. The Delhi High Court in Samarth Trust case had considered EIAs “a part of participatory justice in which the voice is given to the voiceless and it is like a jan sunwai, where the community is the jury.”

The government needs to promote and protect the right to life and a healthy environment as mentioned in the Article 21.

The government needs to bring down the delays in granting environmental clearance in order to improve India’s position in the ease of doing business rankings. Covid-19 has given us all a wakeup call to mend our relationship with the Earth; therefore, it’s time to make environmental laws stricter. The need for stricter and efficient environmental laws has become imperative in the present age of climate change. Administrations, on a domestic and a global level need to formulate policies that reduce their carbon footprint and the per capita emissions of greenhouse gases. The first step in making this change towards a sustainable future is to regulate and monitor the activities of the industries that contribute the majority share towards polluting the environment, which means that firm environmental clearances and legislations need to be enforced. The EIA is such a draft that aims to assess the impact of such projects on the environment.

[1] W.P. NO. 8362/2020 [PIL]

Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change on Issues Related to Air Quality in Urban Areas

The 15th Finance Commission headed by Sh. N. K. Singh and including its Members and senior officials held a detailed meeting with the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change headed by the Union Minister for  Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Shri Prakash Javadekar, senior officers on issues relating to Air Quality(AQ) specially that in Urban Areas. It may be recalled that the XVFC Report 2020-2021 was the first time that any Commission has given attention to air quality (AQ) as a major focus and this FC had not only recommended grants for 2020-21 and also provided road map for its award period. The meeting started with the Minister applauding the Commission for this path breaking step.

The Commission is currently deliberating the recommendations to be made for the next five years from 2021-22 to 2025-26 and needs to formulate suitable provisions for continuing the grants for these cities/UAs for improving ambient air quality in a sustainable manner. In this regard it needed to understand the procedure and operational guidelines finalised in administering these grants and monitoring the outcomes for 2020-21, the meeting with the MoEF&CC was called for.

            The objective of the meeting focused was to was to discuss on the status of the implementation of the FC’s recommendations for 2020-21 for administering the grants to improve AQ in million-plus cities and also to seek inputs from the Ministry on what should be considered for the next five years from 2021 to 2026 and this was elaborated by the Chairman, Shri N. K. Singh to the Minister and the officials.

            The Commission was given the following information: 

  • Regarding reliable data on AQ measurement, it was explained that there is a network of around 984 stations covering a wide range of cities and towns, around 779 manual stations and 205 continuous monitoring stations in around 500 cities which were set up under the National  Control  of   Air   Pollution   (NACP)  to meet its  objectives. Though a network of AQI monitoring stations are in place, there is a need for strengthening and expanding these along with the geographical area to cover the air-shed areas in order to make it more robust and accurate. 
  • The Ministry has begun this work earlier as part of roll-out of NACP and various think-tanks like IITs, IIMs and NITs have been made local partners for different cities/towns. Ministry will also seek their expert guidance on what the Commission need to consider for the five years from 2021.
  • As the problem of AQ is mostly not a localized phenomenon and is influenced by many factors beyond the control of a particular region, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) is now focusing on air-shed management approach.
  • Construction & Demolition Waste Management was a priority of the Government and that the Government would seek the support of the Commission for the same.

The Minister (MoEF&CC) Shri Prakash Javadekar, appreciated the inclusion of Air Quality(AQ) of Delhi in the XVFC’s Report of 2020-2021 and added that there would be a basic structural change in sources of AQ in the next few years and particularly in larger cities of the country due to the new regime to emission norms which would lead to a estimated reduction of 30 to 40 per cent in vehicular emission. 

He opined that strict implementation of pollution and emission laws with harsh punishment and penalties to the defaulters is the pre-requisite for ambient AQ. 

He informed that with the launching National AQ Index in 2015, we now have reliable data of AQ with respect to 42 million plus cities from 2017 onwards. 

The Minister also informed the Commission that his Ministry was coming up with the rules for implementation of Construction and Demolition Waste Control so as to control dust, a major source of pollution in cities.

The Minister emphasized that the grants by FC-XV should continue for the next five years to strengthen the network and coordination between SPCBs of various cities for enforcement of AQ improvement measures. Third party assessment could be done through institutes like IITs and IIMs. He also stated that the Ministry is planning to hold a conference with the SPCBs to ensure effective implementation of this programme, to which the Chairman XVFC has been invited as a participant.

He also briefed about various reforms are being taken up by the Ministry at a break-neck speed and stated that the time delays in approval of application/liences were drastically brought down from earlier 640 days  to 108 days now. Further, this period will be brought down to 50 days within next six months. As regards ease of doing business, the Ministry is coming up with an amendment to the notification of environment impact assessment. He also mentioned the various reforms Page 6 of 7 implemented in the coal washeries that brought down the pollution by several fold and many other steps have been initiated by the Ministry as part of ease of doing business at national and international level.

The Commission unilaterally appreciated the Ministry’s effort in building up capacity to monitor Air Quality.  The Commission also stressed on the need for controlling agricultural pollution.

It will be recalled that the 15th Finance Commission in its report for the Financial Year 2020-2021 had  recommended grants of Rs. 4,400 crore for the year 2020-21 to improve the ambient air quality in fifty million plus cities/Urban Agglomerations (UAs). For this, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Challenge has been entrusted with the responsibility to facilitate the desired outcomes through these urban local bodies.

The Chairman while stressing on the need for consistent and reliable data on AQ, stated that Commission was concerned about the pollution of NCR and would address the same within the mandate of the Finance Commission.  He assured that MoEF&CC that the XVFC would continue it consultations with the Ministry on this critical issue of AQ in million plus cities to firm up its recommendations.