For decades, environmentalists in the country have been alleging that a large number of infrastructure projects are implemented without mandatory due diligence and green clearance procedures are often riddled with irregularities. Their criticisms have sharpened in the past 15 years because successive governments have diluted ecological safeguards — the public hearing requirement in the Environmental Impact Assessment notification, for instance — under the ruse of streamlining the clearance procedures. Two years ago, an Environmental Performance Index of Yale University ranked India 168 amongst 220 countries. Now an investigation by this newspaper has revealed that six mega initiatives cleared between 2004 and 2020 — the Mopa International Airport in Goa, the Dibang Hydel project in Arunachal, Kulda Coal Mine in Odisha and Tamnar Thermal Project in Chhattisgarh, the Subansiri Hydel Project on the Assam Arunachal border — have failed to fulfil their green commitments. The omissions are particularly glaring because experts had questioned the environmental sustainability of these projects since their inception.
At the heart of what has gone wrong is the absence of an effective mechanism to ensure environmental compliance. As the newspaper’s investigation revealed, the Ministry of Environment and Forests has less than 80 officials to conduct field visits. The state pollution control boards and environmental tribunals are almost always short-staffed. Instead of strengthening the monitoring mechanism, governments at the Centre and states have been relying on procedures such as post-facto clearances and trying to goad project developers into compliance by giving them incentives — subsidies, for instance — despite Supreme Court strictures. In 2020, for instance, a two-judge bench of the Court called out the practice of allowing project developers to report a violation retrospectively as “a derogation of the fundamental principle of environmental jurisprudence”. “Allowing for an ex-post facto clearance would essentially condone the operation of industrial activities without the grant of an environmental clearance (EC). In the absence of an EC, there would be no conditions to safeguard the environment,” the court pointed out.
As India strives to grow into a $5-trillion economy — the budget presented by the finance minister last week, for instance, talks of rapid infrastructural development — its policymakers will need to ensure that such prosperity doesn’t come at the cost of the environment. This is especially imperative because sites of developmental projects are often located in ecologically fragile zones. Corridors between coal mines and thermal plants — such as the one between Kulda and Tamnar — are known to be rife with pollutants that harm people’s health, contaminate water bodies, and impair farm productivity. Obviating such hazards requires strong checks and balances. But environmental experts have often complained that short-shrift is given to the autonomy of institutions mandated to protect the environment in the country. The government must summon the will to apply correctives.
