Vizag Gas Leak: An alarming incident to take a careful look at the draft Environmental Impact Assessment(EIA) — 2020
By Vikas SR
Just a few days before the styrene gas leak at Visakhapatnam unit of LG Polymers India, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has proposed a draft EIA notification 2020. This comes at a time when India is struggling to come out of a pandemic-forced lockdown and looking for ways to restart the economy. While many countries in choosing the development path make a mistake of bypassing the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) route. Again the notification of 2020 rather than looking at it as a more environmentally friendly it seems like encouragement to industries. The current notification, if it comes into force, is a move towards seeking investment irrespective of any adverse consequences that could follow. Hence This blog post discusses why we need to take a careful look at the draft EIA notification 2020.
The Vizag gas leak killed at least 11 people and left several thousand severely injured. Initial investigation report says that the LG Polymers plant did not have an environmental clearance for its petrochemical plant for a substantial period of its operations between 1997 and 2019. It had also expanded the production at the plant “beyond the limit of environmental clearance or changed the product mix without obtaining prior environmental clearance though mandated under the EIA notification, 2006. This incident is a failure of our learnings from the horrendous Bhopal gas tragedy that killed at least 20000 people and left long term impact on our ecosystem. Usually, in times of crises like Vizag or Bhopal, governments do tighten safety rules and regulations. But as panic over the economy mounts, governments could end up travelling in the opposite direction. However, the new notification also includes certain provisions which could end up diluting the EIA process. Vizag gas leak is a stark example of how casually certain industries treat environment guidelines and where do we stand in our safety culture? It poses a question to us that what have we learnt about safety management and safety designs?
EIA acts as a core component in this safety norm, it is a decision-making tool or a process whereby people’s views are taken into consideration for granting final approval to any developmental project or activity. The draft EIA notification 2020 was published on the environment ministry’s website on March 12, 2020. The govt has published the notification in the time of crisis when many people are not in that position their comments. According to the government, the new notification is being brought in order to make the process more transparent and expedient by the implementation of an online system, further delegation, rationalisation and standardisation of the process. However, the inclusion of some methods such as post-facto approval weakened public consultation process and lenience on compliance reports make the notification investor-friendly than the environment protection.
The new draft allows for post-facto approval for projects. It means that the clearances for projects can be awarded even if they have started construction or have been running phase without securing environmental clearances. This also means that any environmental damage caused by the project is likely to be waived off as the violations get legitimised. If it’s not met then the remedy would be to impose a fine or punishment, but that would not reverse the detrimental consequences on the environment. Recent Supreme Court and Madras High Couts also passed judgement that the concept of Post facto approval is the derogation of the fundamental principles of environmental jurisprudence and violation of the “precautionary principle,” which is a principle of environmental sustainability. Apart from diluting the process, the new draft also increases the number of projects or activities which do not require an EIA process to be conducted. A complete exemption means no study need be conducted on a project’s adverse consequences for the environment and local population. The exemption problem is compounded by the fact — as highlighted in the CAG report of 2016 — that not a single project has been penalised for the violation of terms and conditions on which its environmental clearance has been granted.
The current notification provides for a reduction of the time period from 30 days to 20 days for the public to submit their responses during a public hearing for any application seeking environmental clearance. It also requires that the public hearing process be completed in 40 days — compared to 45 days under the 2006 notification. The danger is that if adequate time is not given for the preparation of views, comments and suggestions to those who would be affected by the project, then such public hearings would not be meaningful. Unless a public hearing is meaningful, the whole EIA process would lack transparency and credibility. The reduction of time would particularly pose a problem in those areas where information is not easily accessible or areas in which people are not that well aware of the process itself. One big mistake that the notification made is that the public consultation process will not be allowed for the chemical fertilizer, petrochemicals, dyes and oil manufacturing industries where spillovers can happen.
The 2006 notification required that the project proponent submit a report every six months, showing that they are carrying out their activities as per the terms on which permission has been given. However, the new draft requires the promoter to submit a report only once every year. During this period, certain irreversible environmental, social or health consequences of the project could go unnoticed because of the extended reporting time. Through the draft notification, the central government gets the power to categorise projects as “strategic.” Once a project is considered as strategic, the draft notification states that no information related to such projects shall be placed in the public domain. Violations can only be reported suo-moto by the project proponent, or by a government authority, appraisal committee, or regulatory authority. This is against the principles of natural justice.
On a positive note, the 2020 draft notification has a clause dedicated to definitions to several terms related to EIA. It may be beneficial in the sense that it consolidates the EIA rules and has the potential of alleviating some ambiguity in the present law. However, it needs to address the above issues. Grow now, sustain later should not be the policy, as the notion is dangerously tilted against the concept of sustainable development. With the EIA, we also need Social impact assessment to achieve sustainable development in true sense. It seems like the main reason stated for reducing the regulations is that it would become easy for new investments to complete the formality of EIA. However, the government should not allow investment just by diluting its EIA process just to revive the economy in the short-run which makes a larger impact on human, animal and environmental damages in the long run.
