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Ecology & Environment
Mahesh

17/10/23 06:29 AM IST

Environment Impact Assessment (EIA)

In News
  • The Teesta dam breach in Sikkim in early October and the recent floods and landslides in Himachal Pradesh are a stark reminder that himalayan region needs its own EIA.
EIA
  • Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) is one such process defined by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) as a tool to identify the environmental, social, and economic impacts of a project before it is implemented.
  • This tool compares various alternatives for the proposed project, predicts and analyses all possible environmental repercussions in various scenarios.
  • The EIA also helps decide appropriate mitigation strategies.
  • The EIA process would need comprehensive, reliable data and would deliver results only if it is designed to seek the most appropriate, relevant and reliable information regarding the project.
  • Hence, the base line data on the basis of which future likely impacts are being predicted are very crucial.
Background
  • In India, a precursor to the EIA began in 1976-77 when the Planning Commission directed the Department of Science and Technology to assess the river valley projects from the environmental point of view.
  • It was later extended for all those projects that required approval from the Public Investment Board.
  • Environment clearance then was just an administrative decision of the central government.
  • On January 27, 1994, the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change under the Environment (Protection) Act 1986 (EPA), promulgated the first EIA notification making Environmental Clearance (EC) mandatory for setting up some specified new projects and also for expansion or modernisation of some specific activities.
  • The notification of 1994 saw 12 amendments in 11 years before it was replaced by the EIA 2006 notification.
  • The EIA 2006 notification lays down the procedure as well as institutional set-up to give environmental clearance for the projects that need such clearance as per this notification.
  • This notification has categorised projects under various heads such as mining, extraction of natural resources and power generation, and physical infrastructure. Unfortunately, the threshold limits beyond which EIA is warranted for all these projects is the same across the country.
Challenges to EIA
  • There is no regulator at the national level, as suggested by the Supreme Court of India in 2011 in Lafarge Umiam Mining (P) Ltd.; T.N. Godavarman Thirumulpad vs Union of India
  • To carry out an independent, objective and transparent appraisal and approval of the projects for ECs and to monitor the implementation of the conditions laid down in the EC.
  • The process now does not adequately consider cumulative impacts as far as impacts caused by several projects in the area are concerned but does to some extent cover the project’s subcomponents or ancillary developments.
  • In many cases, the EIA is done in a ‘box ticking approach’ manner, as a mere formality that needs to be done for EC before a project can be started.
Source- The Hindu

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