Irregularities in public consultation of 32% dev projects: CAG

Public accounts watchdog CAG has found "irregularites" in the mandatory public consultation process of almost every third of the nearly 200 developmental projects which got environmental clearances between 2011-2015.
In its report tabled today in Parliament, the CAG noted that due diligence in process for holding public consultation was not followed in seven sectors and the non-compliance was maximum in case of river valley and hydro electric projects.
The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) found that commitments made by companies in Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) report during public hearing were also not monitored while reservations expressed during such hearings were not included in the EIA reports.

"We (CAG) examined 216 projects in Environment Ministry granted Environment Clearance (EC) between 2011-July 2015, for evaluating the process of public consultation as stipulated in EIA Notification 2006. In 196 projects where public consultation was to be conducted, we found irregularities in 62 projects (32 per cent)," the CAG said.
It said due diligence process as prescribed in the EIA Notification for the conduct of public consultation was not followed in any of the seven sectors including coal mining, industry, non coal mining, construction, infrastructure, river valley and hydro electric projects and thermal power.
"The non-compliance was maximum in case of River Valley and Hydro Electric projects," it said.

The irregularities included delay in conduct of public hearing, missing advertisements, advertisement not in vernacular language, not taking views of public into account, among others.

It said there was no provision for the Project Proponents (PP) to fulfil their commitments in a time bound manner and to ensure that the concerns of the local people were included in the final EIA report or the EC letter.
"The public hearing process did not have quorum requirement and qualification of residency to participate in the public hearing process.
"Commitments made by PPs in EIA report during public hearing were also not monitored. Besides, the reservations expressed during the public hearings were not included in the EIA reports," the CAG noted.

The CAG also carried out site inspection of 352 sampled projects granted EC between 2008-2011, pertaining to various sectors and found 125 projects were exempted from public hearing while the condition for such hearing was not stipulated in 11 projects by the Environment Ministry.
The CAG observed shortfall in fulfilment of the commitments made during public hearing in respect of 60 projects which included shortfalls in commitments in compensatory afforestation and green belt plantation, installation of instruments for air, water, noise quality monitoring not done, employment to local population, establishment of hospital for local population among others.