Posted on December 17, 2018
The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has ordered the Ministry of environment, forest and climate change (MoEF&CC) to clarify its position on the need for prior environment clearance for inland waterway projects including the marquee Jal Marg Vikas Project (JMVP) along the river Ganga on national waterway 1 between Haldia and Allahabad.
The principal bench of the NGT gave MoEF&CC time until January 31, 2019 to submit its opinion on the issue in a November 1 order that disposed off a petition brought by Bharat Jhunjhunwala & Others against Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) & Others.
The NGT observed that projects of inland waterways are, as on date, not included in the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification, 2006.
“However, such projects are the first of its kind and may increase in the coming days and therefore MoEF & CC has been directed to look into the issue as to whether any environmental clearance is required and whether EIA is to be done in such projects in the future,” the shipping ministry wrote in an internal document, quoting the NGT order.
On January 3, 2018, the cabinet committee on economic affairs (CCEA) approved the JMVP costing ? 5,369.18 crore, funded mainly through a $375 million loan from the World Bank, after the MoEF&CC backed off from its earlier stand that maintenance dredging in rivers require prior environment clearance. The project seeks to improve the navigability of the waterway stretch – which falls in the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency of Varanasi – for ships of 2000 dead weight tons to ply.
The NGT order has lobbed the ball on the controversy back into the MoEF&CC’s court whose stand is by now clear, forcing critics to wonder whether anything worthwhile would come out of the litigation that took three years to be decided.
“Overall, the NGT order is very disappointing because if it wanted to ask the MoEF&CC to clear its stand on the issue, it could have done it right at the beginning… three years have been lost in that,” said Shripad Dharmadhikary at Manthan Adhyayan Kendra, an advocacy group.
“What happens after MoEF&CC submits it’s opinion, that’s not clear. Because, the case has been disposed off. The matter has not been kept pending. So, there is also a question what does it mean when the MoEF submits its stand to the NGT. Will the NGT re-open the case, these are all unanswered questions,” says Shripad.
Shripad says that waterway projects require environment clearance because activities such as dredging, construction of terminals and jetties leads to “huge intervention in the rivers and thereby the environment”.
The EIA Notification does not classify terminals/jetties/ floating terminals on river or dredging in the river as a project requiring environmental clearance, says the shipping ministry.
The IWAI has been mandated to maintain the depth of national waterways at 2 metres for many years, said a former IWAI official. “But, for a major project such as JMVP, the depth has to be increased much higher to as much as 3 metres, requiring huge dredging which will be of capital nature. The shipping ministry presented the whole thing as maintenance dredging to push the project through as maintenance dredging does not require environment clearance according to the EIA Notification. Somebody just played around with the words,” he said, asking not to be named.
The EIA notification, according to Shripad, clearly says that maintenance dredging will be exempt from environment clearance (EC) only if it had been included in the original proposal which has got EC. The idea is, EC is required for capital dredging and if you include maintenance dredging component as a part of the original proposal, then only will it be exempt from EC. JMVP does not have EC, Shripad said.
“Dredging for JMVP is capital dredging. Even if it is projected as maintenance dredging, since it has not got EC initially as part of some other capital dredging or original proposal, it will still require EC, it is clear from the EIA notification. NGT has completely evaded taking a call on this. It was an open and shut case; there was no need for the case to drag on for three years. And after all that, the NGT gave this really disappointing order,” says Shripad.
The World Bank’s decision to sanction the $375 million loan is also seen as going against one of its many operational policies for the JMVP.
World Bank’s operational policy on environment and social assessment categorize projects into category A, B and C on the basis of nature and extent of the impacts anticipated from the project.
Scope of environmental assessment studies depends on the category in which the project falls: Category A – projects with significant environmental impacts and requiring a full Environmental Assessment (EA); Category B – projects with moderate environmental impacts and requiring a lesser level of environmental assessment and Category C – projects which require no environmental analysis.
The JMVP is classified as Category A by the World Bank considering nature of activities and impacts, thereby triggering a full scope EA, according to documents reviewed by BusinessLine.
The World Bank did not respond to an e-mail sent on Friday seeking comment on why it overlooked the environment clearance process while clearing the loan.
The shipping ministry has taken the stand that the Environment Protection Act,1986 and Rules there under including EIA Notification and amendment till date is “considered not applicable” for the JMVP.
To be sure, IWAI has prepared EIA reports on the JMVP with the help of external experts.
“But the problem is that these EIA processes has been carried out outside the legally binding environment clearance regime of the government, so there is very little value to them. Because, in the environment clearance (EC) process of the MoEF & CC, if EIA is done, that is scrutinised by the expert appraisal committee (EAC). Here, the EIA will not be independently scrutinised by anybody except the project proponent (IWAI). When the EC is given by the ministry, it is a legally binding clearance. So, whatever conditions are put, they are legally binding and if they are not followed, they can be taken to court. Here, the conditions do not have any statutory binding and hence don’t carry any worth,” Shripad added.
Source: The Hindu BusinessLine
