For stronger norms environmental action

For stronger norms environmental action

Environmental norms are meant to protect people, not the environment. Nature is capable of taking care of itself, but when too much stress is placed on particular points, the way nature reconfigures itself could cause immense harm to humans who had nothing to do directly with those who caused the stress in the first place.

Landslides and floods that kill people are stark examples from recent news that testify to the significance of observing environmental norms.

Projects that violate environmental norms offer concentrated benefit to the project developer, and harm, sometimes spread over time and space but occasionally equally concentrated, to the wider community. That must be stopped.

Such a vision is sadly missing from the draft Environment Impact Assessment 2020 regulations the government has opened up for public comment. The draft EIA 2020 is mostly a compilation of the dilutions made to EIA 2006 over the past 14 years.Its most damaging provision seeks to regularise violations of environmental norms. Compliance and enforcement have been weak in India.

Many units and projects begin work and operate without environmental clearance, expand production beyond permissible limits, or change the product mix without regard to environmental impact.

The law has one remedy: closure. It is not always practical, given job losses and bank loans going sour. Successive governments have tried to allow for violating units to be brought into the system. Courts have not been supportive of this effort.

The draft EIA codifies the pathway for violating firms. There is no cut-off date, so any entity that is in violation of norms can be regularised. This, in effect undermines the whole idea of environmental impact assessment. The point is to strengthen weak environment impact assessment, institute continuous monitoring of environment clearance conditions and enforce them.

India needs a science-based, full-time agency to track projects and their impact, and ensure compliance. The task is to develop rules and regulations that enable both economic activity and environmental well-being.