High Court relief for environment engineers

[Dr. Sudhanshu Kumar]

The high court has stayed an official memorandum by the Ministry of Environment and Forests which made it mandatory for environment consultants to obtain accreditation with the National Accreditation Board of Education and Training, Quality Council of India (QCI).

source: http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/cities/bengaluru/high-court...

[Pure ail]

Great news hopefully this memorandum will reduce the misused created by environmental engineers, who provides high quality  energy, waste management, infrastructure and industrial sectors.

[Ajay B Dwivedi]

Friends,

This is not 'relief'. It was unjust to so many professionals where, misuse of some vested interest was prevalent since January 2010 may be. QCI / NABET had been behaving as if they were mentors to professionals. I had written in this forum also and must have told to innumerable people in conversation that this provision was not legal at least if I do not go to extent of expressing it as 'illegal'.

Simply because what has been Notified was being overruled by an OFFICE MEMO which is in legal terms invalid. Most people from our community opposed my view and then I was made to score a hat-trick of rejection by assessors as EIA co-ordinator twice and height was reached when I was refused to be FAE for the scheme after 23 yrs of professional experience. That too these assessors 'tried' me for two hours at QCI HQ. Things got minutized as 'not eligible for being employed full-time at one place.' This was known on the first minute to my 'assessors'. Then what made them to continue the farce for two hours?

Another thing that makes entire process unconvincing is the golden privilage offered to QCI. It was all the time surprising as to why none of the affected applicants made a plea in The Court of Law earlier? This type of offering to any organization is violation of Constitutional RIGHT TO CHOOSE AND SURVIVE.

HOPE TO SEE BETTER.

 

[Anjan Prusty]

Well What QCI members were behaving was not known to us.

 

But certainly, the whole initiaitve was to ward off roadside consultants, which were mushrooming every corner in a mega city. A B Tech Civil student with a diploma in Env. Engg simply gets a job in a consusltant Organization and starts getting involved in EIA projects. There are several instances, where flora of Rajasthan was listed in an EIA report done for a project based in North East. This was the extent of lowering status of EIA in our Country. I believe the accreditation process was a screening process to streamline the whole system, not to stop the genuine ones. Howevere, what happened to whom in the discussion room can not be known to all.

 

I hope MoEF would again write back to the Apex court for revoking the stay. In our country its simply B Tech professionals, who do more EIA than professionally qualified scientists.

 

Hope to see the better part of this screening process.

[abhay Kumar Sharma]

Can any one provide the copy of the stay order

[Ajay B Dwivedi]

Dear Mr Anjan,

In this case I have a request to consider to this forum:

I am BE gold medalist from NIT.

ME first class again from NIT.

ISO-14001 lead auditor.

About 15 years experienced as environmental auditor.

Need not quote to praise myself further and still was as written minutized THRICE not fit. Where the hell the qualification and experience are sought? THIS HAD TO BE. WHAT HAPPENS IF APEX COURT ENDORSES THE DECISION OF HIGH COURT?

 

 

[joshi]

I think its a mix bag decision  because being an Environment Engineer its relief  but we should think about quality work criteria for EIA as well all kind of Environmental Work.

[Ajay B Dwivedi]

Joshi Sab,

 

Quality these days with so many accreditations gets limited to managing documents only everyone of us knows. Consider that QCI accreditation requires ISO, NABL and NABET/QCI three audits. This could have and should have been accomodated to one system if the quality was 'the' focus.

Which Environmental Professional is thorough in all these documentation? Apart from this you need to have your manpower marshalled continuously and trade horses like seats in election. Do these 'qualities' fit in our profession?

There was no objective evaluation of the FAEs if the "assessor" does not like you, your discrimination was fixed. Though QCI has been claiming the things to be transparent it has hardly been. Their HQ does not have a qualified team where you can expect any quality.

When MoEF and QCI are uncoordinated themselves, quality becomes secondary. We cannot put delay caused in the accreditation to better assessment, it is because the organization assessing has got a mechanism of favoritism where quality is just a word of books.

I request all those who faced the 'assessment' to ask their assessors to be assessed by them or among themselves first and see who got qualified to become EIA Co-ordinator or FAE.

Talking about qualifications you need the assessor to have a similar qualification first. A Mechanical Engineer assessing an Environemntal Engineer and the proceedings being interpreted by a may be commerce graduate and put forward to a science graduate committee for approval headed by perhaps management qualified does not ensure the output quality but it does ensure hodge-podge of ideology.

Before making such decisions MoEF could have given out a better thought and stage-wise processing of aspirants and younger professionals becoming EIA consultants in future.

[GOPI KANTA GHOSH]

Good justice

[Prof Dr V N Sivasankara Pillai]

Dear All,

Before looking in the correctness of HC order, it may be a relief tho those involved in EIA as a business, but not to environment. EIA reports produced by agencies still remain of appalling standards. No better is the SEIA committees. It is filled with "Raja's nominees" and even people who have bought ornamental degrees. EIA team requires experts from many areas relevant to the project and site sensitivities. The content of EIA reports and decisions of EAC clearly show that most of the "experts" are true to Indian context. We, Indian citizens, have to change a lot in our ethics for EIA to become an effective tool.

[Ajay B Dwivedi]

dr pillai,
very true. Bigger part of trouble comes from people who think they are experts. There are always limitations to an individual's skills.

[Vinod Kumar Gautam]

NABET/QCI Scheme for EIA Consultants Accreditation is faulty, improper, unscientific and it encourage corruption, as  

 

• Most of the Assessor and Accreditation Committee members EIA Accreditation Scheme of NABET, do not have experience in Environmental Impact Assessment studies.
• Most of Assessors and Accreditation Committee members are of age 60 to 80 years. As per Government Service regulations, they are retired people and most of them are not fit mentally and physically to perform such responsibility. This is the reason that they could not dispose accreditation applications in more than a year time. They meet only 3-4 time in a month for 2-3 hours.
• Many Assessor and Accreditation Committee members are treating NABET Scheme as Family & Friend Business, as they have been deputed in NABET/QCI based their personal rapport with few influential people. 
• Most of Assessors do not have qualification for assessing highly qualified professional. Their human assessment techniques are highly unscientific and improper. These Assessors and Accreditation Committee members declare, a well educated, trained and qualified professionals as “inadequate knowledge” and  “inadequate experience”. It is highly ridicules that how two Assessors can evaluate/assess experts and human resource of all disciplines. Based on their unscientific and improper evaluation, comments about professionals are displayed by NABET in public domain/web site. They are playing with the life and career of professionals. This is criminal offence and such Assessor and Accreditation committee members should be prosecuted for such act.
• Few members of Accreditation Committee of NABET are member of Expert Appraisal Committee. They take bribe and other benefits from Consultants and project proponents for clearing projects. In fact, such Accreditation committee Members/EAC member of  MoEF   are responsible for poor quality of EIA reports.
• NABET scheme is highly expensive. NABET charges 15000/- per manday for Assessors and three star facility and air travel. This in fact encourages mal-practices. Greedy people as Assessors have joined NABET based on person rapport, how we can expect quality from them.   
• NABET has only 4-5 staff  including One Director, One Joint Director, One Executive, few

  un-experienced secretarial staff. Their behavior with professionals is not satisfactory.  

     

Therefore, we welcome the stay order of Hon able High Court !!!   

 

Send you comments on [e-mail] and [e-mail]

[Vinod Kumar Gautam]

Yes Mr Abhay 

Attached is Copy of Order HC!!!

abhay Kumar Sharma said:

Can any one provide the copy of the stay order