Whether the objective of NABET's EIA accreditation Scheme is fulfilled?

[Prakash Dash]

Dear Friends,

Lets have a through discussion on NABET's EIA accreditation scheme. I donot think the objective of such a scheme is fulfilled.  It has many more flaws and the question is that what steps it has taken on its own to rectify in the first place?

[Rahul Singh]

Accreditation body should not restrictive but be reformative. This QCI failed. All policies of scheme was directionary but tried for mandatory results. The scheme was toothless.

[MANOJ KUMAR]

This system of accreditation is totally Failed and unnecessary imposed on organization. The main purpose of this accreditation is to earn money nothing else, the official who came for surveillance / office review etc they fixed their own remuneration. Why not the process of accreditation is free. My suggestion the accreditation should be of concerned EXPERT and there should be some kind of exam/interview or other transparent process for it and after that a accreditation certificate should be given to consultant.

[Kshaumesh Antani]

The purpose of NABET was to ensure that quality of EIA studies & reports thereof are high. However, the scheme does not take into account vital experience & skills of team members eg. 1. Geohydrology, Contaminated land. Experience in Environmental Management system establishment, implementation as per ISO 14001 standards. Such important skills, apart from vital one which have a bearing on selective & specialised EIAs are ignored in the scheme, especially during interviews.

Also, stress on documentation (which can often be "Managed" for the sake of system compliance) can tend to divert focus from critical issues encountered in the EIA.

[Prakash Dash]

The beginnings of all things are small and it was expected that slowly the scheme will come to fulfill the objectives. But it became a disaster as most of the experts share their views. More blogs should come as it is going to affect our bread and butter. 

Being an environmentalist, we welcomed the decision and expected that our standard will be improved and we can prepare at par EIA reports/studies as the experts prepare in developed countries. 

But the scheme itself became meaningless. Who are the assessors and approving panelists. Some of the assessors are ex-eia consultants and panelists are inservice/ex-service academicians/decision makers/retired from MoEF/other agencies.

How they selected and what was the benchmark for their selections? And whether they are under anybodys' surveillance?  Can we challenge them? Is any options left for us or we always be at the receiving end?

I appreciate Mr. manoj's views on examination and if examination is not possible at least train the experts and improve the capacity of eia experts and then let them go for a test to qualify. In some cases, you will find, you will be approved by some assessors and the very next assessment you may not?

Coming to the first/second stage of screening of applications, i would like to highlight that, the personnel doing the screening may be  a year or so experineced and the experts who are in this field for so many years are at their mercy. They may get observations or NCs and they may find themselves being not eligible for a particular functional area.

NABET may defend this and say that the eligibility criteria is defined and the personnel are just following that. But who set the eligibility criteria? The eligibility criteria itself  is a big mess and not clear in most of the cases.

We all are doing EIAs and we need environmental specialists not necessarily environmental engineers.  You may get observations/NCs from NABET for not having such and such educational qualifications. But whether NABET has set the same guidelines when they selected the assessors and the final approvers?

Most of the assessors are retired PSU guys ( environmental officers/specialists) of from industries. Had they done their tasks during their hay days then today's environment may not have in this shape. And the pity is that they will grill us like anything during the assessment. 

Is it necessary to have all experts in all the EIA studies? For example, what a soil conservation specialist or geologist will do for construction project or a Port and harbour project? How soil of a region will be changed from a construction project or Port Project?

But, the firm may get NCs if all the experts are not involved and contributed a section in the EIA report?

A few years back, some of the firms had written to NABET, to get exempted from having all the 12 functional area experts since they are doing eias for niche sectors, where the role of most of the FAEs may not be required. No idea what happened to them.

Many more things will come up through various bloggers. And i want to see exactly the same what Mr. rahul expects. Mr. Antani has raised so many valid points. I wish all the best to all.

 

 

 

[Kshaumesh Antani]

Dear Mr. Dash, Many thanks for raising these valid points. Hope NABET / QCI listens / reads this. In fact the scheme was prepared by Consultants, For Consultants, Of Consultants!!

The scheme aimed to reduce the poor quality of reports especially of the "Copy & Paste" variety as also to eliminate few EIAs prepared on Computers without much assessment & very little primary data at ridiculously low prices.

As long as the Environmental Clearance is continued to be seen as something of a License / Permit to be obtained, such practices would continue.

Prakash Dash said:

The beginnings of all things are small and it was expected that slowly the scheme will come to fulfill the objectives. But it became a disaster as most of the experts share their views. More blogs should come as it is going to affect our bread and butter. 

Being an environmentalist, we welcomed the decision and expected that our standard will be improved and we can prepare at par EIA reports/studies as the experts prepare in developed countries. 

But the scheme itself became meaningless. Who are the assessors and approving panelists. Some of the assessors are ex-eia consultants and panelists are inservice/ex-service academicians/decision makers/retired from MoEF/other agencies.

How they selected and what was the benchmark for their selections? And whether they are under anybodys' surveillance?  Can we challenge them? Is any options left for us or we always be at the receiving end?

I appreciate Mr. manoj's views on examination and if examination is not possible at least train the experts and improve the capacity of eia experts and then let them go for a test to qualify. In some cases, you will find, you will be approved by some assessors and the very next assessment you may not?

Coming to the first/second stage of screening of applications, i would like to highlight that, the personnel doing the screening may be  a year or so experineced and the experts who are in this field for so many years are at their mercy. They may get observations or NCs and they may find themselves being not eligible for a particular functional area.

NABET may defend this and say that the eligibility criteria is defined and the personnel are just following that. But who set the eligibility criteria? The eligibility criteria itself  is a big mess and not clear in most of the cases.

We all are doing EIAs and we need environmental specialists not necessarily environmental engineers.  You may get observations/NCs from NABET for not having such and such educational qualifications. But whether NABET has set the same guidelines when they selected the assessors and the final approvers?

Most of the assessors are retired PSU guys ( environmental officers/specialists) of from industries. Had they done their tasks during their hay days then today's environment may not have in this shape. And the pity is that they will grill us like anything during the assessment. 

Is it necessary to have all experts in all the EIA studies? For example, what a soil conservation specialist or geologist will do for construction project or a Port and harbour project? How soil of a region will be changed from a construction project or Port Project?

But, the firm may get NCs if all the experts are not involved and contributed a section in the EIA report?

A few years back, some of the firms had written to NABET, to get exempted from having all the 12 functional area experts since they are doing eias for niche sectors, where the role of most of the FAEs may not be required. No idea what happened to them.

Many more things will come up through various bloggers. And i want to see exactly the same what Mr. rahul expects. Mr. Antani has raised so many valid points. I wish all the best to all.

 

 

 

[Rakesh Shah]

The important thing is to have proper mitigation measures and therefore all environmental intelligence requires to be focused on the same i.e setting-up of pollution control systems, operating them to the best, understanding improvements required followed by doing the needful.

The NABET scheme is forcing environmental engineers/scientists to prepare so called PERFECT EIAs with very few engineers/scientists desiring to stress on the the mitigation requirement. The idea being to become a EIA consultant or a FAE or a EC since it pays much more than working in the field.

We will PROBABLY have A+ quality EIA reports but the Ganges will keep on deteriorating since no engineer/scientist would be available for or  remain interested in tackling the same. 

Ache din kahan se ayenge. 

[Kshaumesh Antani]

Dear Mr. Shah, you've hit the nail on the head. Report perfect but implementation of mitigation measures (both end-of-pipe as well as prevention) = almost nil. This is like "Operation successful but the patient is dead".

[KULDEEP M. GURAV]

EIA Notification itself is having everything, if Notification is Not sufficient to control regulations there must be Amendment to include NABET to control all activities of granting EC.

There is no Co-ordination between NABET, SEAC/EAC, consultant organisations and Proponent. 

There is no need of any NABET ... if we control population. Does any Assessing body highlighted on population control? 

Each individual/ Human being come to this world with some dreams, How can we stop this? 

If you go to http://www.iucnredlist.org/search

Homo sapiens (Human)

Status: Least Concern ver 3.1 

Pop. trend: increasing

Even though we are "Least Concern" we are very much concern about our survival ...

......Be the Change You Wish to See in This World....

[preeti]

Dear All,

This is not to defend what all you have said, but to show the other side of coin

 

NABET has been always open to any such constructive feedback on Scheme as it will help it improve. Criticizing an activity without specific reasons and logic is the easiest thing to do. The EIA Scheme is an attempt to bring the system oriented approach for EIA preparation which will ultimately benefit the consultant organizations themselves. The consultants honest to themselves & their profession can introspect and find out as to how a 20 lakhs job is done in 2 lakhs, why copy paste of data and EIAs are still practiced and who is going to suffer in future. Environmental consulting was ought to be a business for environment professionals for protecting environment. However, to the contrary it just appears to be a business. 

 QCI/NABET and its role:

1. It is unknown or is ignored, that QCI/NABET is not for profit organization and fees charged is to run & sustain the process. The objective is, therefore, to improve Quality. 
2. QCI/NABET through this Scheme has identified the crucial areas which should be strengthened in a consultant organization to bring out good quality EIAs. 
3. Assessors are professionals in the environment field with vast experience including in EIA.  They come from various backgrounds like consultants, regulators, industry, academics and have exposures to different sectors of industry. They are also extensively trained by NABET from time to time both in the subject matter as well as assessment techniques. 
4. Sometimes there are variations in the category of a consultant or an expert in subsequent assessments. The reason for this is that the assessment stresses specific aspects e.g. potential capability in Initial Accreditation, Performance in Surveillance Assessment and Improvement and updation in knowledge in Re-Accreditation. This is the logical approach for most of the accreditation process to achieve ‘continual improvement’.
5. To support the above, NABET has already launched the training modules for EIA Coordinators, Functional Areas and a Scheme for Accreditation Training Providers.
6. With the objective of optimizing the man power requirements of consultants for their chosen sectors, QCI/NABET is proposing rationalization of functional areas as per sectors applied. This will be there in public domain for comments from stakeholders.

To conclude, as already informed to all Accredited Consultant Organizations during the One Day Workshops in June, a constructive feedback which can be uniformly implemented across the country has been requested.   As mentioned above, QCI/NABET is open to such feedback and concerned people may also visit NABET’s office for any further clarification on above.

 

Preeti Pawaria

Executive Officer 

QCI-NABET

[Kshaumesh Antani]

Dear Ms. Pawaria, Many thanks for bringing out QCI-NABET's perspective and also for information on training modules. Would certainly like to attend these.

[MANOJ KUMAR]

Dear Ms Preeti Pawaria 

You have thrown a very intense light on QCI-NABT accreditation Scheme but in my opinion the scheme is just like other BUSINESS module nothing else. My question is "why Qci charge huge amount for accreditation" The per mandays charge is more than 20000/. Do you know what is professional fee of a middle and senior Environmental expert in India ..It is in range of 4000- 8000. (except ADB and World Bank project). QCI people has fixed their fee and every year they increase but they do not revel the basis of increment. 

Now QCI has launched NEW Scheme 

Accreditation of Institutes/ Organizations for Training on EIA

Please See the FEE of it and then you will realized. ---- Its Simply A UNCONTROLLED BUSINESS.

Again my suggestion is Accreditation should be given to individual Consultant  and there should not be MONOPOLY of QCI only. Government should allow some other organization for this purpose.

[aakash Verma]

I agree with the opinion of Mr manoj Kumar. There should be some online examination for accreditation of Individuals and MoEF should allow some other organizations for this purpose.