Abstract
Development is an ever growing process and its impact is often detrimental to environment which in turn may lead to adverse consequences for human life. Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) is an anticipatory and participatory environment management tool which helps in the decision-making process for different upcoming development projects by analyzing the environmental consequences of the action. The large scale projects like setting up of Special Investment Regions (SIR), Special Economic Zones (SEZ) and Industrial Estates (IE) have cumulative impacts on the environmental condition of the region. This paper intends to describe different practices of impact assessment and seeks to direct this debate towards the potential benefits of applying Regional EIA over the project specific EIA to capture the cumulative impact of large development projects like SIRs and IE on the environmental condition of the region and underline the challenges often faced during the study. Regional EIA is a new concept in India and the process of development of an SIR is different from the other industrial projects such as SEZ or IE. Unlike SEZ which comprises of only industrial activity, SIR also includes residential commercial and other amenities over an area of more than 100 square kilometers. Further, the implementation of Regional EIA in Indian context is also constrained by problem in baseline data collection and lack of exhaustive ecological and socioeconomic indicators for impact assessment and restricted use of state of art technologies such as Geographical Information System due to many factors such as cost involved and lack of awareness among consultants. The whole process of Regional EIA should be made rapid and more participatory.
Highlights
In 1960’s, economic development was given more weightage over the environment
Regional Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) came into the light to address the cumulative impact of upcoming projects on the whole region
The different upcoming industries in the region approach Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) for Environmental Clearance (EC) as per the schedule of list of projects or activities requiring prior EC mentioned in EIA notification 2006 and 2009 and these projects are not taking into consideration the terms and condition on which the region as a whole is approaching for EC to MoEF
Summary
In 1960’s, economic development was given more weightage over the environment. It was generally accepted that the benefits of economic development would be more than enough to compensate for any deterioration in environmental quality associated with these developments. Environmental degradation and depletion of natural resources induced by the human activities later attracted steadily growing concerns and came into the picture in the United Nations conference held at Stockholm in June 1972 This conference is widely recognized as the beginning of modern political and public awareness of global environmental problems wherein the focus was to provide a framework for the comprehensive consideration of the problems of human environment. The foundation of EIA in India was laid in (1976-77) when the planning commission asked Department of Science and Technology (DST) to examine the rivervalley projects from environmental angle. Later on, this was subsequently extended to cover those projects which required approvals from Public Investment Board. A number of bilateral agencies have prescribed guidelines for the environmental assessment of projects for which they provide the financial assistance [5]
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