Environment Ministry needs to take urgent systemic actions

Why the MoEF needs to urgently take up

some systemic tough actions

A completely wrong impression is being created, largely by vested interest lobbies that Union Ministry of Environment & Forests under the leadership of Shri Jairam Ramesh is over reacting in recent months. The situation is exactly the opposite. The Ministry needs to take up some tough systemic actions rather soon if India’s Environment and Forests to have any hope. Fact of the matter is that the Ministry is yet to really start performing the role for which the ministry is created. To illustrate:

• Our rivers continue to remain what the World Bank describes as fetid sewers. The MoEF has the mandate and power to ensure that rivers are not polluted. The Ministry has been empowered with the laws like the Water Pollution Control Act, the Environment Protection Act and so on. It has been provided with huge institutions and sufficient financial resources in terms of thousands of crores, and yet the ministry is yet to achieve a single clean river in the country. Right in the National Capital, the river flowing through it is a gutter as described by many editorials in National papers, but the ministry is unable to take any action to fix that problem.
• The ministry every month continues to give hundreds of clearances under EPA (1986), Environment Impact Notification (2006) and Forest Conservation Act. (1980) accompanied by Forest Rights Act. Each such clearance is accompanied by an Environment Impact Assessment, Environment Management Plan and conditions of clearances. The MoEF has neither the capacity nor the will to ensure compliance with the conditions under which such clearances are given. It does not even know what is going on at project sites. Its field offices do not do any surprise visits to the project sites to ensure if the projects are following the laws of the land. A recent review by the additional Chief Secretary of Himachal Pradesh following a High Court order showed that everyone of the reviewed projects were violating the laws or management plans. But there are practically no consequences for such violations. A recent RTI response from the ministry revealed that over five years after getting environment clearance in Oct 2005, the Polavaram dam in Andhra Pradesh has not submitted a single compliance report when it supposed to submit such reports every six months. No consequenes. Even when the reports submitted to it by the developers (e.g. Karcham Wangtoo hydropower project) or by committees appointed by the ministry (e.g. Sardar Sarovar Project) or by non government organisations (e.g. Tehri Dam and Rampur Hydropower project) show violations, there are still no consequences. And if the ministry does not know what is going on, what action can it take?
• It is an open secret that the EIAs submitted to the ministry are routinely plagiarised,  are cut and paste, and dishonest, seriously compromised jobs, including for the Jaitpur nuclear power plant most recently cleared. But the MoEF has not taken any measures against any of the EIA consultants for filing fraudulent EIAs, even after media has reported and when these issues have been brought to the notice of the ministry one way or the other.
• The ministry still does not have clearly defined norms that only persons with back ground in environmental issues should be selected for the Environment Appraisal Committees appointed by the ministry for scrutinising the applications for clearances. So we have Rakesh Nath heading the EAC for River Valley projects, without having absolutely any background on environmental issues. He was appointed during Mr Jairam Ramesh’s regime, incidentally.

These just a few BIG systematic issues one can highlight, on which urgent action is required if we are to have any semblance of governance on environmental issues. But there is not even a move in that direction.

There is no doubt that Mr Jairam Ramesh has started taking some steps in right direction in some projects. The developers have become used to have an MoEF that is not doing its job, but working as an agent of environment destruction. In such a situation the developers are suddenly crying that there is over reaction from the ministry. However, if one looks at closely, almost in each of the instances where the ministry has taken action, one can see that the action was long over due and that in many cases the action was taken only after people working on ground have high lighted the problems or cases have been filed  in the courts. This is true in case of Lavasa, Vedanta, Posco, Polavaram dam, Maheshwar hydro projects, Renuka Dam, among others. In fact for each such case, one can show dozens of others where action is over due from the MoEF, but the ministry have not yet taken the required action. There are other instances (e.g. SUVs, western life styles being bad for environment or that the National Action Plan on Climate Change should have been formulated in participation with the people at grass roots) where Mr Jairam Ramesh has made statements, but action is still awaited. Actions that can bring systemic change in environment governance so that non compliance invites consequences is still awaited. The Ministry is clearly under reacting.

Himanshu Thakkar (ht.sandrp@gmail.com)                                                 December 6 2010

South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers & People (www.sandrp.in)

An edited version published at: http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/isenvironment-ministry-over-reacting/417440/