Environment Ministry’s Copy-Paste Job From US Can Spell Disaster

The new environment law draft is almost a word-for-word copy of an existing law in the US.

People carry oil lamps as they pray for thousands of flood victims in Uttarakhand. (Photo: REUTERS/Amit Dave)

When water filled the basement of a Laxmi Nagar neighbourhood for two months in 2010, the foundations of a four storey building gave way, killing 67 and injuring more than a hundred others. It was one of the deadliest building collapses in Delhi’s history.

Many buildings in Laxmi Nagar and colonies bordering the Yamuna river lie in the Yamuna flood plain, an area that is regularly waterlogged. Though the National Green Tribunal has regulations that prevent permanent construction on a river bed, these are often not enforced. And a newly proposed notification, plagiarised from an existing American law, could make it easy for construction companies to bypass environmental impact assessments that are supposed to prevent disasters like the Laxmi Nagar collapse.

A man is pulled across to safety on a rope, as damaged buildings and the Alaknanda river are seen in the background, during a rescue operation in Govindghat. (Photo: REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui)

Environmental Impact Assessments require companies to address “all relevant environmental concerns,” before starting construction, as per a 2006 notification. Social and environmental risks are supposed to be taken into account during this process.

But the newly proposed notification would grant an Environmental Supplement Plan for companies that have already started construction. This would allow them to circumvent the Environmental Impact Assessment Notification.

Instead, violators of environmental regulations are required to reduce “the likelihood that similar violations will occur in the future.” They also have to reduce negative impacts incurred on public health and the environment. Both of these stipulations would occur after the damage is already caused.

Environmentalists say this would allow projects that have not gone through the EIA an escape route.

We even fail to understand how the provision of ESP is going to protect or improve the quality of the environment.

Manoj Misra, Environmental Activist and Convener of Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan

Buildings destroyed during floods are seen next to the Alaknanda river in Govindghat in Uttarakhand. (Photo: REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui)

What’s more, the regulation is almost a word-for-word copy of a Supplemental Environmental Projects Policy in the United States. A report in the Indian Express found that more than three-quarters of the document is a replica of the US law.

Though the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has denied copying the American legislation, the words in both copies are almost exactly the same.

For example, the American regulation’s introduction states: “Supplemental Environmental Project (SEP) is an environmentally beneficial project or activity that is not required by law, but that a defendant agrees to undertake as part of the settlement of an enforcement action.”

While the Indian copy says, “An Environmental Supplemental Plan (ESP) is an environmentally beneficial project or activity that is not required by law, but that an alleged violator of Environmental Impact Assessment Notification, 2006 agrees to undertake as part of the process of environmental clearance.”

Other than details specific to India, the concept of both introductions is the same. But there’s a reason countries write their own laws, legal experts say. American laws are not applicable in an Indian context.

Environmental violations form civil charges in the US. In India, these are criminal offences under the law... That is the law as it exists. It cannot be undermined by borrowed executive wisdom.

Ritwick Dutta, environmental lawyer, <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/environment-ministrys-rules-for-polluters-in-india-copied-word-for-word-from-the-us-2900485/">told</a> the Indian Express

The public has less than a month to comment on the draft and multiple environmental organisations have already submitted requests for changes to the document.