Shortly after taking over as the environment minister in 2009, Jairam Ramesh had famously stated that he wanted to preside over the liquidation of his ministry?s powers to grant approvals. In the two action-packed years of his tenure, however, Jairam was seen to be doing exactly the opposite?centralising all powers not just in his ministry, but in himself. Sadly for him, though, he operated only in the interregnum and did not remain long enough in the ministry to see through the institutional reforms that he had initiated to bring in more transparency, predictability and professionalism into the process of evaluating and clearing industrial projects.
Key to Jairam?s idea of freeing up his ministry?s control over environmental governance was the setting up of two independent and professional institutions?a regulatory body named National Environment Appraisal and Monitoring Authority (NEAMA) for monitoring and enforcing green standards, and a quasi-judicial body for adjudicating environmental disputes.
The adjudicating authority, in the form of a National Green Tribunal (NGT), started functioning just weeks before his ouster from the ministry. But the sectoral regulator NEAMA is still a work in progress. Still, with the Prime Minister himself seen to be taking an interest, it is now expected to be put on a fast track.
It is easy to see why the combination of these two institutions is not just important but completely essential for effective environmental governance at a time when India is witnessing massive industrialisation and rapidly firming up its infrastructural assets. The current system of environmental regulation is so flawed that one wonders as to why it was even conceived of in the first place.
As of now, the environment ministry is responsible for not just evaluating the environmental impact of a project but also for granting approvals. This has been widely seen to be an area of conflict of interest. But what is more surprising is that approvals for projects are decided on the data and reports submitted by the project proponent itself. There is no independent verification of the data being submitted and no site visits. There is certainly no cumulative environmental carrying capacity assessment of an area before deciding whether to give environmental clearance to a project or not.
The project proponent submits an Environment Impact Assessment report, which is often a copy-paste job from earlier projects, and places it before the relevant Environment Appraisal Committees?several such EACs exist within the Ministry, one for every sector?for its consideration. The EACs?permanent bodies but with hardly any full-time member?typically meet once in about a month and usually decide on 30-40, sometimes even 70 applications, in a day. There is obviously little time to devote to individual applications and the EAC assumes that all the information being furnished by the project proponent is correct. In any case, it doesn?t have the manpower or the resources to make an independent verification.
While clearing a project, the EACs put down a number of conditions or actions that need to be taken. But again, they are in no position to monitor or enforce compliance of the conditions. So these remain only on paper. Actions for non-compliance, as for example against Vedanta?s refinery project in Orissa, are extremely rare, and come only if someone makes a complaint and the ministry is kind enough to probe.
It is no surprise, therefore, that in a system like this an activist minister like Jairam Ramesh found enough opportunities to intervene. Such interventions would not be necessary once NEAMA comes into being. Initially proposed to be modeled on the US Environment Protection Agency (it was supposed to be called NEPA), NEAMA is envisaged as a fully independent and professional body with full-time expert staff to deal with environment issues in a holistic manner, even taking into account related aspects of displacement and rehabilitation. To be set up by amending the Environment Protection Act, 1986, NEAMA is supposed to maintain a database of standard environmental data, like air pollution or water pollution levels at a particular place, so that it can match and verify those being presented in the EIA report. In any case, the EIA reports would be made only by a group of accredited consultants, the process for which has already begun. The staff of NEAMA would be encouraged to make site visits and collect their own data in case of all important projects. Constant updating of its database would ensure that NEAMA would be in a position to monitor the compliance of green norms by a company on a real time basis. In case of violations, it will be empowered to impose penalties or take the violator to court.
It is important to note that NEAMA would only be making recommendations. The actual decision would have to be taken by the environment ministry, ensuring that there is a clear separation of powers and no conflict of interest. The ministry, having lost most of its role to the NEAMA, would confine itself to the business of legislation and policy-making. More than any of the several high-profile and headline-making decisions that he took, it would be NEAMA and NGT that would finally define the legacy of Jairam Ramesh as an environment minister.
amitabh.sinha@expressindia.com
