Draft EIA to protect green, bring in transparency, expedite environmental clearance: Javadekar

 

‘Post-facto sanction’ isn’t our invention. This was done in 2010, 2012 and 2013 through office memorandums (OMs) by the UPA government. The National Green Tribunal later quashed those orders, saying that OMs cannot override notification. The government was asked to issue a fresh notification. Then, there were three court decisions —from the Jharkhand High Court and the Supreme Court. The Jharkhand High Court said the Centre cannot refuse considering clearances except on merit and not on the issue of violation. The Supreme Court has clearly said closure of an industry is not the option before the government for violations. If the government gives environmental clearance to a company after it has gone through proper processes, it is given prospectively. There will be no ‘retrospective’ clearance. There will only be ‘prospective’ environmental clearance and heavy penalty will be imposed for the period of violation.

 

Talking about the need for the new notification, the 2006 EIA notification has been amended 55 times. 230 office memorandums were issued on it. The government is not proposing major changes, we are just revising and consolidating the changes made so far. There are three key changes we are proposing. In 2014, we had given general approval for all defence projects and border roads within 100 km of the LAC, this will now be reflected in the EIA. For defence projects, we are not giving blanket freedom; they will follow standard guidelines but the process will be expedited to save time.

 

As far as the final notification is concerned, there are 1.8 million views we have got through public feedback. Our final notification will come after considering these views. This is not a final document.

 

 

 

 

We have reduced the time limit for public hearing from 30 days to 20 days. Public hearing is conducted on a single day for a project and communication has moved faster now due to mobiles and other information technology tools. So, a shorter duration works well.

 

For projects with no environmental impact such as MSME and clean technology industry the condition for public hearing has been done away with. We are doing away with discretion given to states and the expert appraisal committees on environmental clearance and categorisation of industries —to do away with confusion.

 

The 2006 EIA notification which brought in the B1 and B2 categorisation of industries was the UPA’s creation, not ours. This gave states the discretion to decide which industry was in which category and has led to wide variation and confusion across states on exemptions. We hope to do away with this confusion. We are adding to the list of industries that will require public hearings –– power, steel, cement and 17 critically polluting industries even in industrially notified areas.

 

 

In the electronic format, system of filing yearly compliance report is good. What one should emphasize is that these reports should be read by someone. Today we receive hundreds of reports every six months. There is no mechanism to check whether these are read by someone. We need to have to put in place a system of accountability.

 

 

 

 

The world is appreciating India’s leadership in the area of environment. We are among the few countries who are walking the talk on the Paris agreement. We have promised 35% reduction in industrial emission intensity by 2030. By now, we have already achieved 21%. The forest cover has increased by 15,000 sqkm. We have run a bio-fuel aircraft first time in the world. We are mixing 10% ethanol in petrol. We have migrated to BS-6 and taken a new target of restoration of 26 million hectares of degraded land. We have 70% of world’s tiger population. India is home to 70% of Asian elephants and 70% of Asian lion population. The Prime Minister has launched Project Lion and Project Dolphin. In solar energy, we have already achieved more than 40 GW annually. We produce 87 GW of renewable energy annually. We propose to produce 100 GW of solar energy and 450 GW of renewable energy in the future. India is ahead of other countries in terms of renewable energy production. Those who were in power for 10 years could not even build a bypass road in Delhi. We built it in five years and now 60,000 vehicles which used to pollute Delhi every day do not enter Delhi.