Has Mr. Jairam ramesh bowed to the presssures of his collegues to clear POSCO. what will be the implication of this action on the future EC process in the country

[G UDAYABHASKAR]

Despite divergent views by MOEF commitee members Mr. Jairam Ramesh has approved the POSCO project. The whole approval is based on Comprehensive EIA prepared in April 2007 which is more than 3 years old data. The conditions are based on such data. Are acceptable?specially when MOEF takes a stand in EAC meetings that only data less than 3 years old can be accepted!

As stated by Mr. Chandra Bhushan , DD, CSE on NDTV yesterday, what ever conditions MOEF stipulte , they are only on paper as MOEF lacks instituional mechanisms to ensure compliance.It is known fact that MOEF regioanl offices are ill equipped in terms of man power, infrastructure, delegation of power etc.

What will be the impact of this decision on the future approvals of projects ?    

[Anil Kumar Gupta]

No doubt, Sri Jairam Ramesh has appeared to be a strong Environment Minister after a gap of more than two plan periods. However, the interference of the controlling offices including PMO and more to it the high commands and the political arena of a politician's existance and career survival many times forces one to compromise his/her ideology and voice of even own soul with the political or financial mileage.

As indicated that the decision is taken for the larger benefits, directly indicated that it has come under some strong proessure. Why...? Need to discuss that why a strong Minister could not withstand the influence of other portpolios and what must be the institutional mechanism or structure to avoid such casualties in future? More transparancee and more participatory approach is 'still lacking'. We (public) know what government wants us to know. Despite of RTI and many other provisions public is easily fooled.

Despite of cases like Bhopal disasters, Kosi flood, Delhi Mayapur radioactivity disaster and so many acts/laws like Public Liability Insurance Act, Environmental Tribunal, DM Act, we still have no system of Liability towards our actions and decisions. Taking decisions is not matter of previlege or rights. It a decision is taken, the party to decision making must adhere also the sense of liability for its impacts/implications and also keep hold of accountability for ensuring counter measures to avoid negative impacts.

It is good we started a dialogue here....please keep it up!!!

Anil

[Pulla Reddy]

He Should had been Stringent. Seems like he bows..

Anil Kumar Gupta said:

No doubt, Sri Jairam Ramesh has appeared to be a strong Environment Minister after a gap of more than two plan periods. However, the interference of the controlling offices including PMO and more to it the high commands and the political arena of a politician's existance and career survival many times forces one to compromise his/her ideology and voice of even own soul with the political or financial mileage.

As indicated that the decision is taken for the larger benefits, directly indicated that it has come under some strong proessure. Why...? Need to discuss that why a strong Minister could not withstand the influence of other portpolios and what must be the institutional mechanism or structure to avoid such casualties in future? More transparancee and more participatory approach is 'still lacking'. We (public) know what government wants us to know. Despite of RTI and many other provisions public is easily fooled.

Despite of cases like Bhopal disasters, Kosi flood, Delhi Mayapur radioactivity disaster and so many acts/laws like Public Liability Insurance Act, Environmental Tribunal, DM Act, we still have no system of Liability towards our actions and decisions. Taking decisions is not matter of previlege or rights. It a decision is taken, the party to decision making must adhere also the sense of liability for its impacts/implications and also keep hold of accountability for ensuring counter measures to avoid negative impacts.

It is good we started a dialogue here....please keep it up!!!

Anil

[DR. KAWALJEET SINGH]

members are correct as they point out the concerns. As a person, who was a constituent member of many EIA's I know for a fact that an EIA report is just akin to a PhD thesis - you do not open it once the degree is awarded. If we were to pick up even a few projects and carry out a comparison between the actual state and the recommendations  of the EIA, the story will become very clear. In fact, the whole system is flawed. The party impacting the environment pays for the EIA recommendations. This more or less assures of a positive EIA.  Has any EIA said to a proponent that NO according to my report, this activity is unsustainable at a given place and time? Environmental Audit also remains on similar lines. Result? pressure on the Minister to say yes - from all angles. There must be an audit system with the same teeth as the financial audit system with a body with the same legal teeth as the CAG. Only then any EIA will have a meaning. Only then a moniser can say "Look the auditors need to clear this first". 

MR Jairam has done his job well. Only if he had support of a working system in place.

[GOPI KANTA GHOSH]

Possibly so

[G UDAYABHASKAR]

Dear Dr. Sudhanshu

If you look at the fianl order. PA is still asked to make a comprehensive EIA and submit it again. It is interesting because this so called fianl order is still not fianl and some thing may emerge after this stipulated Comprehensive EIA. The issue here not only the data but also the divergent views of Commitee on the project. The mojor issue is not this project alone but the likely cahnges in Enviornmental Governance , as this may set precedence to many more to come. Hence I raised that issue for discussion.

Can U throw some light on that aspect.

Dr. Sudhanshu Kumar said:

Many time, I surprised when I follow discussions on EIA processes in India because most of these discussions either ends without having any consensus or productive conclusions.

Do you really think that the project should not have been cleared because the EIA was based on three year old data? If you read the “final order” from MoEF, these three years were actually a procedural delay because of the forest and other issues popped up in between otherwise the application for captive power plant and then captive power plant cum steel plant were submitted to MoEF in September 2006 and April 2007 respectively. At the time of submissions, defiantly data were up-to-date and clearances were also granted in May and July 2007.

To my understanding, the current order called “Final Order” is really a clearance in totality to the project with respect to EIA, forest and other clearances wherever the EIAs were already accepted in 2007 and correct me if I am wrong that an approved EIA is valid for five years. So what’s big deal? the data were not outdated at all!!!

Anyway, at present, irrespective to the status of data (up-to-date or archived), will it make any difference to any EIA “conclusions”?

Thanks

S

[Dr. Sudhanshu Kumar]

Dear Mr Udayabhaskar,

If you are referring page 29, para vii, I understand this is an advice to produce a comprehensive document instead of several documents which were produced over the time. This is a fair requirement at the end of the project clearances at least for the document control purpose. Meanwhile, the clearance granted on 15^th May 2007 is still valid (page 24, para 3) with some “more” conditions! Therefore, I don’t see anything new is going to come up after the comprehensive document.

Personally if feel, “EIA report is an useless document if you can’t conclude the study in to a workable Environmental Management Plan and/or Environmental Compensation Plan, because every project has an impact on environment ”.

However, I am quite interested in following the implementation mechanism and transparency in implementation of the long list of conditions in the “Final Order”. Believe me, if these conditions are going to be implemented as intended then this would be really an achievement otherwise I don’t see any difference between Mr. Ramesh and his predecessors.

I am out of the discussion, bye for now.

Thanks

S

G UDAYABHASKAR said:

Dear Dr. Sudhanshu

If you look at the fianl order. PA is still asked to make a comprehensive EIA and submit it again. It is interesting because this so called fianl order is still not fianl and some thing may emerge after this stipulated Comprehensive EIA. The issue here not only the data but also the divergent views of Commitee on the project. The mojor issue is not this project alone but the likely cahnges in Enviornmental Governance , as this may set precedence to many more to come. Hence I raised that issue for discussion.

Can U throw some light on that aspect.

Dr. Sudhanshu Kumar said:

Many time, I surprised when I follow discussions on EIA processes in India because most of these discussions either ends without having any consensus or productive conclusions.

Do you really think that the project should not have been cleared because the EIA was based on three year old data? If you read the “final order” from MoEF, these three years were actually a procedural delay because of the forest and other issues popped up in between otherwise the application for captive power plant and then captive power plant cum steel plant were submitted to MoEF in September 2006 and April 2007 respectively. At the time of submissions, defiantly data were up-to-date and clearances were also granted in May and July 2007.

To my understanding, the current order called “Final Order” is really a clearance in totality to the project with respect to EIA, forest and other clearances wherever the EIAs were already accepted in 2007 and correct me if I am wrong that an approved EIA is valid for five years. So what’s big deal? the data were not outdated at all!!!

Anyway, at present, irrespective to the status of data (up-to-date or archived), will it make any difference to any EIA “conclusions”?

Thanks

S