Experts for clearance to mega projects after environmental impact studies

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE, SEPT. 4. That environmental considerations are never factored into cost-benefit analysis when mega development projects such as dams, thermal power plants or the 30 categories of industries which require environmental clearances, emerged as the most important aspect that needs to be changed, at a seminar on ``Dams and Development: A Framework for Decision Making'' which concluded here today.

The seminar, organised by the National Law School of India University (NLSIU) and the South Asian Network for Dams, Rivers and People, examined in depth the decision-making processes involved in the planning and implementation of dams and other infrastructure projects.

The last century saw over 35,000 big dams built across the globe, which meant every single day of the past 100 years, a dam was built somewhere in the world. And not a single project has come up with a successful plan to rehabilitate the displaced. This has been brought out by a comprehensive report by the World Commission on Dams.

Summing up the issues on which delegates reached a consensus, the former Environment Secretary to the Centre, Mr. N.R.Krishnan, said one of the suggestions was that the stakeholders in such projects should explore alternatives. This sometimes included saying ``no'' categorically. However, there were barely a handful of projects which were rejected at the proposal stage itself. The Silent Valley Project, Pooyamkutti Project, and the Mudumalai- Bandipur projects of the Seventies sprang to mind, he added.

An independent authority or an advisory committee which could function with reasonable measure of freedom was an option that could relieve the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) which was vulnerable to pulls and pressure from vested interests, and other ministries whose agenda did not include environmental considerations.

It was mooted that no project should be given clearance unless all the mandatory environmental impact studies were done and conditional clearances should be an option used extremely frugally.

Many of the completed or ongoing projects should be reviewed or monitored on a regular basis, as it would help fine tune responses to environmental considerations, and ensure that stakeholders and project-affected people are left with no livelihood sources.

Another recommendation was to ``turn the losers into permanent gainers'' by involving them as shareholders, and ensuring them a permanent source of income or livelihood from the project.

Public hearings as they are currently organised came in for a great deal of criticism, dubbed ``shams'', where the affected parties were invariably left out of the information loop.

Mr. Krishnan said pressure should be mounted on policy-makers to make suitable amendments to existing laws and possibly evolve a separate law that would incorporate all these suggestions, and make for a broad-based, transparent system of environment management. ``This can also be the blueprint for an environment policy which will address all issues that affect a large number of people whenever mega projects displace them,'' he added.

The NLSIU Director, Mr. Mohan Gopal, said the affected people rarely had a share in the decision-making process, and this seminar should take forward the efforts to evolve a bargain- consensus oriented framework where informed consent would be truly operational.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Southern States
Previous : 11 computerised sub-registrars' offices to start
           functioning soon
Next     : Karunakaran, Murali stick to their guns