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Bahar Dutt | Good for industry, bad for environment
The Subramanian committee reviewing environment laws was undemocratic in process and results
A high-level committee, led by retired bureaucrat T.S.R. Subramanian and set up under the environment ministry to review laws that protect the country’s environment, submitted its report on 18 November. There’s no dispute that there is a need to review the entire body of environment laws, such as the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 and Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981. What is contentious is who the fine-tuned laws will benefit. Here’s what the Subramanian committee recommended:
• Polluter polices itself: In what must be a first, industry will now regulate itself, keeping in mind the principle of “utmost good faith”. The panel suggests holding the project proponent responsible for his statements at the cost of possible adverse consequences if they are later found to be false. In other words, if you are a polluting industry, it is assumed you care for the general population and you will do everything in your capacity to minimize pollution, or disclose information that is accurate. And if found guilty later after having set up your factory, you will be punished.
This clause was supposedly introduced to do away with the era of inspector raj, never mind that even in the existing setup, examples abound of project proponents giving misleading information or underplaying the negative impact of their unit on the environment. This recommendation is like the jailor handing over the keys of the prison to the inmates, asking them to promise they will remain in jail or face punishment if it is discovered they have escaped.
• Role of civil society minimized: The committee has recommended that the powers of the National Board for Wildlife, the one platform for biodiversity and scientific experts to participate in environmental decision-making, be handed over to the environment ministry, thus ensuring there is no scope for any project being reviewed for its negative impact on forests or wildlife.
• Democracy be damned: While the committee makes it clear it wasn’t mandated to review the Forest Rights Act, which gives power to local people for their consent or dissent for a project, it states that the consent of local people be dispensed with in the case of linear projects, such as roads or transmission lines. This was done keeping in mind the principle of the larger good of society.
• Inspector raj reinforced?: The committee was asked to do away with inspector raj but instead asks for the creation of several new institutions such as the National Environment Management Authority and its state-level equivalents. The intention is that these institutions will have technical monitoring teams. “This recommendation doesn’t do away with the inspector raj, but rather attempts to reinforce it in different forms,” says Geetanjoy Sahu, assistant professor, Tata Institute of Social Sciences. “For example, its suggestion to create state-level environmental management authorities will create further conflicts with existing regulatory authorities like the Pollution Control Board. It suggests bringing the Pollution Control Board under state environmental management authority, which will be problematic. Such kind of change will create more power structures at the state level and might lead to non-compliance.”
• Out with National Green Tribunal, in with administrative body?: The National Green Tribunal has long been a thorn in the flesh for the environment ministry and industry, as its functioning is completely independent of the ministry. The committee has suggested the setting up of an administrative tribunal to look at environment cases. The terms of reference for an administrative tribunal are dictated by the ministry and the tribunal will comprise retired bureaucrats not judges, thus ensuring there is no independent judicial review. In such a scenario, what will be the future role of the National Green Tribunal is not clear.
Sugar-coated green diplomacy
To sugar coat these pro-industry recommendations, some lip service is paid to the green cause by creating the illusion of caring for the environment such as banning leg-hold traps (assuming there will be some wild animals left in our forests once the onslaught of the so-called development is complete) and launching a green awareness programme across the country.
Environment lawyer Ritwick Dutta of Legal Initiative for Forest and Environment, a non-profit, questions the process by which the Subramanian committee arrived at these recommendations, describing it as undemocratic. The panel met a selective group of people and environmental non-governmental organizations (NGO) in different cities. A a meeting in Patna, the chairman was not even present and the NGOs were asked to keep their presentations short as one of the members of the committee had a flight to catch.
Those who live along the fault lines of the environment versus development debate were not even consulted. Did this committee visit the villages in Jharkhand, Odisha or Chhattisgarh that bear the curse of minerals in their backyard, or those living in critically polluted zones demarcated by the ministry?
But why blame the committee when its terms of reference were prepared by a ministry headed by Prakash Javadekar, who made it clear on day one that his mandate is speedy clearances. The previous United Progressive Alliance government was no better. In fact, many of the recommendations were initiated in its time. When convenient, Rahul Gandhi, vice-president of the Congress party that led the UPA, took to defending and acting as a soldier for the tribals of Odisha, even as he attended an industry meeting in Delhi emphasizing the need for fast-tracking environmental clearances.
This debate is not about environment or development. It’s about our right to clean air and clean water and clean rivers. That’s what environment laws were meant to be, act as safeguards as we proceed on the expressway to development. Even with only 2-4% of our land protected, we are still struggling to achieve an economic growth of 6%. How much more can we develop without choking in our own sewage, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and garbage? By weakening the body of environment laws and dismantling green institutions, it is clear who the recommendations were meant to serve. It’s certainly not the environment.
Bahar Dutt is a conservation biologist and author of Green Wars.
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First Published:27 Nov 2014, 07:07 PM IST
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