The Hindu Editorial Analysis- 24th January, 2022 | Current Affairs: Daily, Weekly & Monthly - CLAT PDF Download

1. A Stellar Fallacy: Assessment of Environmental Costs, Benefits of Projects should not be done in Haste

Page 6/Editorial

GS 3- Environmental impact assessment

Context: A move by the Union Environment Ministry to implement a ‘star-rating system’ has sparked controversy after one of its official communiqués became public.

About Star Rating Scheme

• Under this scheme, State-level environment committees that appraise industrial projects on their potential environmental risk would be incentivised with points for “transparency, efficiency and accountability”.
• This idea followed a Union Cabinet meeting this month to facilitate the Government’s broader commitment to ‘Ease of Doing Business’.
• On a scale of 7, an SEIAA, for instance, gets more points for granting a clearance in less than 80 days than for within 105 days and no marks for more. A score of seven or more would be rated ‘five star’.
• Advantage: The Environment Ministry has said that the intention is not to hasten clearances but accelerate the pace of decision making. Rather than files being sent back for every query, all objections must be compiled and addressed at one go, it contends.
• Problem: This might defeat the purpose of the whole Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) exercise.

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA): It is a process whereby people’s views are taken into consideration for granting final approval to any developmental project or activity. 

• EIA is one of the cornerstones of ensuring that the ecological costs of infrastructure development are minimal.
• MoEFCC uses Environmental Impact Assessment Notification 2006, issued under relevant provisions of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, as a major tool for minimizing the adverse impact of rapid industrialization on environment and for reversing those trends which may lead to climate change in long run.
• Category B projects: Prospective projects above a certain size and with a potential to significantly alter the natural environment must be first approved by the State Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA) comprising State officers and independent experts.
• Projects that are even bigger or involve forest land — category A — must be cleared by an expert committee formed by the Centre.
• SEIAA projects make up the bulk of projects for approval including building and construction, small mining, small industry projects, and are considered ‘less polluting’.

Problem with the Star Rating System

• The star rating system proposed is to “rank” and “incentivise” States on how quickly and “efficiently” they can accord environmental clearances. However, a reading of the order gives the impression that States, in the quest for more stars, would logically vie for speedily clearing projects rather than ensure a thorough appraisal.
• While quicker decision-making benefits everyone, State committees are currently hampered by having too few independent experts and decision-making being left to bureaucrats than to environment specialists.
• Both industrialists and States gain from projects and, therefore, the tendency is always to elide environmental concerns.
• In many instances, site visits are critical to understand the potential environmental challenges.
• Calculating the risks and the benefits of industrial projects vis-à-vis their environmental impact is understandably hard.

Conclusion
The way forward is to take steps to increase trust in the system and ensure that all States have competent experts who can conduct appraisals without fear or favour. A list of empty rankings is the least advisable way to bring about this.

2. A Proposal for Indian Environmental Service: What were the Recommendations of the T.S.R Subramanian Report on Environment?

Page/Text & Context - I

GS 3- Environment

Context: The Supreme Court has asked the Government if it will create an Indian Environmental Service (IES) as recommended by a committee headed by former Cabinet secretary T.S.R Subramanian in 2014.

• The Supreme Court was responding to a petition filed by a lawyer Samar Vijay Singh, whose counsel pointed out that matters of environment required special expertise. Currently matters of environmental regulation rests on scientists of the Ministry of Environment and Forests as well as bureaucrats from the Indian Administrative Services.
• The apex court expressed reluctance at getting into administrative matters of the Government but nevertheless asked the Centre if it expects to go about constituting such a mechanism.

About the T.S.R Subramanian Committee Report on Environment

• The committee was set up in August 2014 to review the country’s green laws and the procedures followed by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC).
• It suggested several amendments to align with the Government’s economic development agenda. The report submitted to then Union environment minister, Prakash Javadekar had suggested amendments to almost all green laws, including those relating to environment, forest, wildlife and coastal zone clearances.
• The committee had three months to submit its report. After it did, a Parliamentary Standing Committee rejected the report on the grounds that it ended up diluting key aspects of environmental legislation designed to protect the environment.
• The Parliamentary committee suggested that another committee, with more expertise and time, be constituted to review the environmental laws.

Recommendations

• The report proposed an ‘Environmental Laws (Management) Act’ (ELMA), that envisioned -
  • A full-time expert bodies—National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA) and State Environmental Management Authority (SEMA)—to be constituted at the Central and State levels respectively to evaluate project clearance (using technology and expertise), in a time bound manner,
  • The existing Central Pollution Control Board(CPCB) and the State Pollution Control Boards(SPCBs), which monitor and regulate the conditions imposed on the industries to safeguard environment, are proposed to be integrated into NEMA and SEMA once the new bodies come into existence.
  • Providing for single-window clearance.
• To accelerate the environmental decision-making process, they suggested a “fast track” procedure for -
  • “linear” projects (roads, railways and transmission lines),
  • Power and mining projects and
  • For “projects of national importance.”
• The Air Act and the Water Act is to be subsumed within the Environment Protection Act.
• An appellate mechanism against the decisions of NEMA/SEMA or MoEF&CC, in respect of project clearance, prescribing a three-month deadline to dispose appeals.
• An “environmental reconstruction cost” should be assessed for each project on the basis of the damage caused by it to the environment and this should be added into the cost of the project. This cost has to be recovered as a cess or duty from the project proponent during the life of the project.
• At the tail end, it proposed a National Environment Research institute “on the lines of the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education” to bring in the application of high-end technology in environment governance.
• An Indian Environment Service to recruit qualified and skilled human resource in the environment sector.

The Fate of the Report

• The Centre never formally accepted this report and neither constituted a new committee as recommended by the Parliamentary Standing Committee.
• However, many of these recommendations are implicitly making their way into the process of environmental regulation.
• The Government has proposed rewrites to the Forest Conservation laws, set timelines to the pace at which expert committees that appraise the suitability of infrastructure projects must proceed, as well as sought to make existing laws consonant with court judgements.