While the sixteenth UN conference on climate change is taking place in Cancun, Mexico, deliberating on global action plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and management of the climate change for sustainable development, reports about violations of applicable environmental regulations by various agencies including mining firms, cooperative housing societies and township inviting showcause notices from the Ministry of Environment and Forests seeking explanations are repeatedly appearing. It is obvious that the time is ripe for the nation and the discerning public to pay increased attention to persisting environmental problems, including increasing greenhouse gas emissions, consequent global warming and climate change to help achieve sustainable development goals.
In line with the global concern on the issue, it is no surprise that many of the disciplines are rapidly going ?green?. Along with ?greening? of economics, finance, manufacturing, marketing, banking, architecture, computing and so on, accountants and auditors are also increasingly greening their sphere of activity. So, we take note of some important observations in the latest CAG green audit report of the green ministry.
Green or environment audits factor in environmental concerns to be sensitive to sustainable development concerns, while carefully evaluating the competing environmental, economic-cum-industrial and socio-politico-cultural development demands. A green audit is essentially conducted on the basis of applicable acts, regulations, procedures and practices prevalent in the country. In India, the Environment Protection Act, 1986 is a piece of comprehensive legislation that defines the environment as including ?water, air, and land and the interrelationship which exists among and between water, air and land, human beings and other living creatures, plants, microorganisms and property?, covering all the life supporting systems. Green auditing, therefore, essentially revolves around auditing of issues relating to air, water, land, waste management, climate change, coastal zone management, biodiversity, environmental accords, treaties, environmental impact assessment (EIA) before sanctioning of any project by the concerned authorities, environmental management systems (EMS), environmental management programmes and all other relevant aspects.
Although CAG reports generally address concerns of sustainable development in different reports, the reports predominantly dealing with environmental issues of the Ministry of Environment and Forest are essentially green in colour, design, tone and content, including the recommendations for improving systems, procedures and implementation of environmental programmes.
This year?s CAG green report contains observations on green projects and schemes meant for afforestation, conservation of biodiversity, pollution control and environmental awareness, which are administered, monitored and executed by the nodal ministry for environment. The audit finds that funds were provided to concerned agencies for increasing tree cover but the projects were not implemented and forest resources not developed to improve the degraded forest land as planned, leaving more than 70% projects incomplete, funds unutilised and targets unachieved.
In case of biodiversity conservation, the green ministry had not issued important regulations regarding access to biodiversity, transfer of results of research and intellectual property rights. The ministry did not complete identification and preparation of the list of endangered and endemic species, including plant species as well as biological resources as a first step to protect them. Further, surveys and explorations were not adequately carried out to identify fragile ecosystems and protected areas.
The ministry has an ambitious project to improve environment in selected cities?the Eco-city programme. Its prime objective is to prevent and control pollutants in air, water and land, and create awareness for de-stressing environmental burden in cities having cultural, historical, heritage and tourist importance. The project was conceptualised by the Central Pollution Control Board. Out of the 12 cities to be covered in the first phase, it selected only six cities?Puri, Kottayam, Ujjain, Vrindavan, Tanjavur, Tirupati. As the project implementation was found deficient in many respects, the board was asked to recast the entire Eco-city programme to factor environmental concerns afresh with municipal functions, providing adequate resources for pragmatic and participative planning and implementation.
For example, one of the important projects to control pollution caused by leather tanneries at the common effluent plant located at Bantala, about 20 km south-east of Kolkata, could not be implemented as scheduled. Reasons for the delay were controllable?like irregular release of funds, ineffective monitoring and improper maintenance of equipment. Consequently, effluents discharged from the tanneries bearing toxic substances like chromium continue to percolate into the groundwater and create cesspools. There is, therefore, an urgent need to ensure the safe disposal of industrial effluents and solid wastes from tanneries via timely implementation of the project.
It is true that the audit institution has no direct role in policy formulation. But it can give indirect help to the government in formulating policy and planning projects, programmes and schemes for environmental protection that aim at sustainable development. This can be done by providing valuable inputs, facts and data while evaluating project implementation, identifying the systemic and procedural deficiencies in execution and bringing valuable lessons from experience. The prime objective of all environmental programmes?including the stakeholders and those who are responsible for policymaking and planning, formulating projects, executing, monitoring, reviewing as well as auditing?is the same i.e. continuously improving the performance of projects and achieving the desired outcome by taking timely preventive and corrective action.
?The author is director general (commercial) in the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India