By Nivedita Kandekar
New Delhi, Apr 12 (IANS):Tuesday’s publication by the Union Environment, Forest and Climate Change Ministry of an amendment to the EIA notification allowed for exemptions from environmental clearance to several projects, such as defense related/border area projects up to 25 MW thermal plant based on biomass or expansion of terminal buildings at airports.
The proposed amendments to Environment Impact Assessment (EIA), Notification 2006 concern the requirement of prior Environmental Clearance for projects deemed public utility works as per the notification published Tuesday, but bearing the date April 11.
The Environment Ministry has already submitted a series of amendments that have been criticized heavily by environmental activists as “dilution” to the EIA process. These amendments were introduced in 2020 and are still to be finalised. These amendments will likely draw more criticism because of this.
The exemptions are subject to the conditions that the agency executing the project follows standard environmental safeguards. Or, the incremental environmental impacts can easily be mitigated by providing environmental safeguards that can be integrated into the Environmental Management Plan (EMP), at the time of granting such clearances.
“Exemptions like these are inevitable, keeping in mind the needs of the people. Our concern is that the EMPs are not being followed honestly. A senior Ministry official stated that we need a strict mechanism to do it.
IANS was informed by Bhupender Yadav, Environment Minister. He said that the Ministry is aware of concerns regarding proper EMP implementation. We are currently examining the options to address these issues and will soon have a policy.
Currently, thermal power plants of up to 15 MW that are based on biomass or nonhazardous Municipal Solid Waste and using auxiliary fuels such as coal, lignite/petroleum products, up to 15%, are exempt from the requirement for EC. For thermal plants above 25 MW, no EC is required by the amendment.
The Ministry proposes to raise the threshold for fish handling capacity at ports/harbours that only handle fish to 10,000 tonnes per year to 30,000 TPA. This is in consideration of the concerns of fishermen about their livelihood security and the potential for pollution.
It also proposed to exempt from EC highway projects related to defense and strategic importance in border state that are sensitive in their nature and, in many instances, need to executed on priority keeping strategic, defense and security considerations in mind.
The amendment proposed that these standards would be subject to the prescribing of Standard Operating Procedure and standard environmental safeguards for such projects in order to ensure compliance by Agency executing such projects.
The amendment proposed to exempt airport expansion, but only when it involved the expansion of terminal building areas. The Ministry’s proposal stated that most expansion activities involving existing Airports relate to Terminal Building expansions without increasing the Airport’s area. This means that there are only incremental environmental impacts that can be mitigated by providing for environmental safeguards that can be included in the Environmental Management Plan at local level.
The Ministry has also proposed that the extra width at the toll plaza or junction improvement at intersections not be included in Right of Way to National Highways greater than 100 kms.