Leather/Skin/Hide Processing Industry - Environmental Clearance

1.INTRODUCTION TO THE TECHNICAL EIAGUIDANCE MANUALS PROJECTEnvironmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is a process of identifying, predicting,evaluating and mitigating the biophysical, social, and other relevant effects ofdevelopment proposals prior to major decisions being taken and commitments made.These studies integrate the environmental concerns of developmental activities in to theprocess of decision-making.EIA has emerged as one of the successful policy innovations of the 20th Century toensure sustained development. Today, EIA is formalized as a regulatory tool in morethan 100 countries for effectively integrating environmental concerns in economicdevelopment process. The EIA process in India was made mandatory and was also givena legislative status through a Notification issued by the Ministry of Environment andForests (MoEF) in January 1994. The Notification, however, covered only a few selectedindustrial developmental activities. While there are subsequent amendments, theNotification issued on September 14, 2006 supersedes all the earlier Notifications, andhas brought out structural changes in the clearance mechanism.The basic tenets of this EIA Notification could be summarized into following:Pollution potential as the basis for prior environmental clearance based on pollutionpotential instead of investment criteria; andDecentralization of clearing powers to the State level/Union Territory (UT) levelAuthorities for certain developmental activities to make the prior environmentalclearance process quicker, transparent and effective.Devolution of the power to grant clearances at the state level for certain category of thedevelopmental activities / projects is a step forward to fulfill the basic tenets of the reengineeringi.e., quicker, transparent and effective process but many issues impede/hinderits functional efficiency. These issues could be in technical and operational as listedbelow:Technical issuesEnsuring level playing ground to avoid arbitrariness in the decision-making processClassification of projects which do not require public hearing and detailed EIA(Category B2)Variations in drawing the Terms of Reference (ToR) for EIA studies for a givendevelopmental activity across the States/UTsVarying developmental-activity-specific expertise requirement for EIA studies andtheir appraisalAvailability of adequate sectoral experts and variations in competency levelsInadequate data verification, cross checking tools and supporting institutionalframeworkMeeting time targets without compromising with the quality of assessments/ reviewsVarying knowledge and skill levels of regulators, consultants and expertsNewly added developmental activities for prior environmental clearance, etc.,TGM for Tanneries August 20101-1