EIA Notification, EIA Structure & Actual Report Structure

[RAGHAVA]

EIA Notification 2006 has provided the generic structure of the EIA report. But after providing the structure in ministry notification is there a need to provide model EIA structure like model TOR for various projects.

After attending meeting one can feel that he should prepare and present his case in a manner acceptable to the person sitting on opposite chair and not as per the EIA structure

[Ajay B Dwivedi]

Dear MVR,

Actual EIA and related issues may be subjective. The reality is that professionals are forced to write, what the committee wishes to read. Consider the fact that not all presentations are made by a single organization. How come the TORs issued are more or less the same? Where is the question of presenting anything and wasting time?

[Veeraprasad Mukka]

I think so. I feel as per the EIA notification, the ministry has not clearly mentioned the guidelines. It is always better to provide a seperate EIA guidelines categorically. The ministry issued a seperate guideleines for most of the industries. I hope this will help the Env consultents to prepare a better EIA, which may further help to save this environment.

[Sheetal Nagare]

i agree with "once the committee changes then again the report structure needs to be changed as per the person."

[RAGHAVA]

Nice sheetal Jee,

so it is sad to here that no one has commented on it. I have already given my suggestions in mining sector, cement sector, thermal power sectors on the EIA guidance manual prepared by ASCI, IL&FS etc. I hope you are talking about that only. If i am sure most of the people are not even aware that the guidance manual is for open for public comment. I think i have not put my points in a right way that is the reason you are not able to focus on what i intend to say. i would like to put my expression in more simpler way.

lets assume that the EIA guidance manual is approved and one has to prepare as per the guidance manual that is ok . lets us assume that there are 10-15 persons sitting on opposite chair one from Air environment, one from wild life one from socio economy, like wise occupational health, agriculturist, botanist, zoologist. psychologist etc. Finally if we see we need to incorporate the points not only from the published manual but also as per the speciast person's individual needs. once the committee changes then again the report structure needs to be changed as per the person. That's what i wanted to convey. I understood that you have been to MoEF committee before for an EC presentation. But my experience at various meetings has taught me a lot and i am never sad about anything.

[Sheetal Nagare]

Reason for being specific: i was talking about 'DRAFT Guidance Manual for Environmental Impact Assessment and Clearance of River Valley Projects http://164.100.194.13:8080/ssdn1/htmls/Guidance%20Manual.htm ) and not just EIA manual which was prepared looooooong back :). So opportunity has been provided and till few days back not even one person/organisation have commented on it. i insisted on commenting because it badly needs changes if it gets accepted as it is then it would be like 'prepare and present the case in a manner acceptable to the person sitting on opposite chair'. To give suggestions / comments is your own choice and so facing its repercussion is..... TOR: precious time needs to be spend so that we dont miss out those 1 or 2 points :). See if we start skipping certain step we would loose our chance for putting things rightly. your experience of "dont argue" is sad but not faced by me ever at any level so cannot comment on that.

[RAGHAVA]

Sheetal Jee,

It was nice to hear one voice. I do accept that specification are necessary wrt project but if you constantly observe the TOR issued you can observe that irrespective of magnitude of the project, most of the TOR's issued are same. we can just go to MoEF site and see the minutes of meeting of any sector we can find than TOR's suggested are almost common to every project except for one or two points. If we go to history Draft EIA manual is prepared during EIA Notification 1994. But opportunity on commenting on EIA manual is never provided and i don't feel there is a need to suggest anything. My suggestion is if TOR are provided same or almost same to all projects, then what is the necessary to call for a meeting merely wasting ours and their precious time. While preparing EIA notification 2006 a draft notification was released one year prior to that and suggestions / objections / recommendations were taken from many people. but while releasing EIA notification 2009 it was given very calmly and suddenly without any prior notice. Coming to presenting our study it is clear that we don't have any voice, if we say anything then immediate response will be just don't argue. Even we try to clear the point in a humble way it will not happen. i think i need to stop here

[Sheetal Nagare]

I feel specifications are necessary to some extent because their is lot of difference in magnitude of certain parameter for 2 different projects. Model TOR for various projects is also required. As per your project you can study or not study certain issues said in the TOR and mention so to the project authority and have scientific reasoning for the same. But you are right in saying 'whether we should present our study in the manner acceptable to the person sitting on the opposite chair' then the answer is no. To stop such things we need to contribute while such structures/notifications etc are being prepared. So is the case with Draft EIA manual. Please need it !! As of now how many of us have read and sent our suggestion to MoEF. Unless we start contributing to such procedure we would not get correct things happening.