19 Feb Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)

(Indian Express)

(GS Paper III, Environment)

Context:

• Recently The Supreme Court observed that it was inclined to strike down the Centre’s notification exempting authorities from undertaking the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) if a road project has a length of fewer than 100 kilometers.
• The Court also said that a guideline will be formed to categorize the trees which were in the pipeline to be cut.
• A committee of four experts, appointed earlier by the court, had estimated at Rs 220 crore the 300 heritage trees which were to be cut for the construction of five railways over bridges in WB in terms of oxygen and other commodities they offer.

History of EIA:

• In 1976-77, the Planning Commission inquired to the Department of Science and Technology to examine the river-valley projects from an environmental angle.
• Till 1994, environmental clearance was an executive decision, there was no backing of the legislature on it.
• In 1994, the then Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, under the Environmental (Protection) Act of 1986, notified an EIA notification making Environmental Clearance compulsory for expansion or modernization of any exercise or for setting up new projects listed in Schedule 1.
• The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) briefed the new EIA legislation in 2006.

Further reading on the topic:

• Certificate of Green Building
• Corporate Environment Responsibility
• Eco-Sensitive Area/ Eco-Sensitive Zone
• Accredited Environment Impact Assessment Consultant Organization
• Central Pollution Control Board

Acts to be read for the topic:

• Wildlife Protection Act, 1972
• Air Act, 1981
• Biological Diversity Act, 2002
• Environment act, 1986

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Ajit Satapathy