The environment ministry is hardly a “green roadblock ministry” as is being made out by the PMO.
The MoEF’s Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) on River Valley and Hydroelectric Projects considered a total of 262 hydropower and irrigation projects in the last six years and green signalled every single one of them.
Contrary to the PMO’s claims, not a single project has been rejected. This means that between 2007 and December 30 2012, stage 1 clearance was given for hydropower projects with an installed capacity of 48,456 MW which is 25 per cent more than what India has installed in 66 years of independence.
A series of RTIs further show that in these six years, the EAC has recommended final environmental clearance for hydropower capacity of 16,084 MW which is around three times the hydro capacity of 5,544 MW added during the 11th Five Year Plan.
But activist Himanshu Thakkar with the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People points out that despite such massive clearances there has “ been no addition to the net area irrigated by major and medium irrigation projects across India as per government of India data during the last decade”.
Only two projects (in the last six years) have not been given clearance and in these cases also, the project proponents were asked to come back with reformulated proposals.
Mr Thakkar said, “Many of these approved projects had been rejected by other statutory bodies. Not once has the EAC asked for fresh public hearings even when they the ministry was provided evidence of serious deficiencies.”
Other activists believe that the functioning of the EAC has seen violations of a legal and environmental kind especially in terms of cumulative impact assessment and in terms of biodiversity impact assessment and yet no effort has been made to make amends or review such flawed decisions. “Expert Appraisal Committee should be renamed expert approval committee since it seems to have expertise in approving rather than appraising projects,” Mr Thakkar added a trifle sarcastically.