Environmental farce

Given how environmental degradation and rehabilitation of displaced people have become so important, you would think that governments at the centre and in the states would be serious about dealing with these complex issues, deliberating at length about environment clearances and the rehabilitation packages relating to various projects. Yet, the evidence available suggests that the process is as casual and routine-driven as it can be. As Sunita Narain of the Centre for Science and Environment pointed out in her column in this newspaper yesterday, the environmental impact assessment report for a bauxite mine in south Goa did not even have a map that identified local habitations and agricultural fields that would be affected by the project. In the case of the Rs 12,500 crore Polavaram dam project, the ministry of environment and forests gave its clearance without even holding public hearings on the environmental impact assessment in either Chhattisgarh or Orissa, the two states most affected by the project. Indeed, while quashing the ministry's order, the National Environmental Appellate Authority (acting in this manner for the first time in a decade) said, "It's evident that no public hearing was conducted in the affected areas of Orissa and Chhattisgarh. Neither did the affected persons have any access to the executive summary of the EIA..." In the 3,000 Mw Dibang hydro-electric power plant case, similarly, residents of a village did not get the EIA summary before the public hearing.

If all this isn't bad enough, there have been several cases reported in the press where agencies evaluating such projects have been caught fudging data. The newspaper Mint reported that, in the case of a bauxite mining project in Maharashtra, the environmental impact assessment report on the basis of which the expert group approved the project was fudged, and had been largely copied from a Russian bauxite mine report. Naturally, much of what the report spoke of had little or no bearing on Maharashtra "" "the primary habitat near the site for birds", the report said without any trace of embarrassment, "is the spruce forests and the forests of mixed spruce and birch". Spruce forests in Maharashtra? Other facts, such as the levels of magnesium and calcium in the water near the mines, were exactly the same in the two reports. Several years ago, another newspaper had quoted two environmental impact reports of different projects "" one was the exact copy of the other with the project name changed.

Apart from the fact that no action has even been contemplated against the firms and agencies churning out such reports, what is amazing is that no one realises the futility of it all. In the Polavaram project, for instance, a total of 200,000 persons are to be displaced (that's more than the 150,000 in the case of the Sardar Sarovar Dam project). So, even if the government had managed to get by with a bogus environmental clearance, did it really think the project would go through? Protests have been organised in the past with far fewer than 200,000 persons nursing grievances. The moral of the story is a simple one: wherever people are involved, particularly in large numbers, it is no longer possible to trample on their rights. If projects needing land are to go ahead, they can do so only with the support or at least consent of those being displaced. This has been the lesson from the SEZs and from Singur and Nandigram; and the sooner governments realise this, the better.