The Politics of Environmental Impact Assessment in India
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) has been part of contemporary environmental political discourse in India. In 2020, the central government of India altered the 2006 EIA notification on the premise of the ease of doing business policy, with adverse impacts for vulnerable communities in India. Some lawmakers described these changes as anti-democratic, anti-people, and anti-cooperative federalism, referring to how these changes did not go through public consultation because they are not considered an act of change in law. In reality, the changes will impact state accountability in India’s environmental governance and may create new challenges for vulnerable communities.
Critical aspects of India's 2020 EIA notification
On 12 March 2020, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) published a new draft of the EIA notification 2020. The draft has reduced the period allotted for public hearings, suggested increasing the time allowed for project owners to submit a compliance report, and allowed projects that have already been initiated to be regularised through post-facto clearance. The changes in EIA have ignited the debate between environment and development as the Indian central government continues to support the ease of doing business policy. Environmental commentators have raised concerns that the new draft proposes huge dilutions in environmental safeguards.
Public participation in environmental policy formulation and agenda setting in India is abysmal. The lack of public participation, poor political will, and the emergence of right-wing majoritarian politics in India have been prime reasons for anti-people environmental policies. Since Narendra Modi’s government came into power in 2014, its policy decisions have impacted India’s environment and environmental policy discourse. It is important to highlight that India does not have any public forum through which people can directly participate in environmental policy formulation and design unless policies are made available by the environment ministry for public scrutiny on their website. This way, only a few people can participate in policy formulation. However, India’s central government is not required to consider all public feedback. The 2020 EIA notification has not provided public participation provisions and has been diluted to make it easier to do business.
Changes to EIA rules have also exempted highway projects of "strategic and defence importance". As a result, the environmental clearance of projects such as the Char Dham road project in Uttarakhand has raised concerns. The 2020 EIA notification proposes a disregard for public voices; it prevents citizens from reporting public violations and noncompliance. Instead, the government will only consider reports from the government, appraisal committee, regulatory authority, or the project owner.
The central government has given environmental clearance to development projects in ecologically sensitive zones around the Himalayas. Such steps are against the biodiversity and ecology of the Himalayan region. These policy decisions raise concerns about the Indian state’s accountability in environmental governance. Currently, the world is facing multiple challenges. To address growing issues of climate change and heat waves, world leaders should formulate environmental policies that enhance public participation in environmental governance. Ensuring public participation in environmental governance is key to addressing environmental issues on domestic and international fronts.
Impact on vulnerable communities
The 2020 EIA is set to violate various rights of the tribal communities as given under statutes and several legislations of Parliament. The proposed changes in 2020 EIA are against the ethos of constitutional rights of tribals, which have been guaranteed under Schedule V and Schedule VI, Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, and the provisions of the 1996 Panchayats Act (Extension to the Scheduled Areas, PESA). The EIA draft has also raised concerns for the northeast region, which is already prone to natural calamities such as heavy floods, earthquakes, and landslides due to hydrological and seismic fragility. The 2020 EIA provisions could push the northeast region into a violent extractive era of environmental governance by diluting Schedule VI and Article 371 of the Indian Constitution, which provides community ownership rights over natural resources in the region. The proposed post-facto environment clearance to industries may increase pollution, as industries work without the consent of the MoEFCC.
Conclusion
Overall, state accountability is a central and concerning issue in India’s environmental governance. The debate on accountability is the necessity of the hour in a diverse country like India, which has an enormous number of complexities imposed by the current government. With its proposals to repeal public participation in environmental governance, the proposed draft of EIA 2020 has brought forward several changes that are anti-people and anti-environment. Given the fragile ecology of northeastern and Himalayan regions, there is a need for an ecologically sensitive development policy. A strong EIA could fulfil this requirement and establish state accountability in India’s environmental governance.
Written by Tejendra Pratap Gautam, a PhD scholar at the Ashank Desai Centre for Policy Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, India.