Activists see red over green scrutiny waiver for projects

NEW DELHI: Policy analysts and environment activists have slammed a government notification that exempts real estate projects with a built-up area of up to 50,000 square metres from the environment impact assessment (EIA) process and from having to obtain a prior environmental clearance,saying the move was irresponsible and regressive.

The move was notified by the environment ministry on November 15, a day after it delegated the responsibility of monitoring whether real estate projects are meeting environmental standards to local bodies such as municipalities and district panchayats.

Local bodies do not have powers to appraise or reject any of these projects.

All real estate projects above 20,000 square metres have had to comply with the EIA and required prior environmental clearance from the State Environment Impact Assessment Authority.

What the latest move means is that projects the size of a large apartment complex or a five-star hotel can now go ahead without environmental scrutiny of the project site, of how it will affect traffic or air pollution, and how it will impact groundwater or surface water resources in an area.

“The real-estate sector has been continuously asking for reducing environmental scrutiny on them since 2005 when the EIA notification was amended. They have tried this with successive governments,” said Kanchi Kohli, who is a legal researcher at the Centre for Policy Research.

“It’s irresponsible of the environment ministry to exempt projects when they should be applying the precautionary principle and increase their environmental scrutiny. The local bodies have been made responsible for monitoring of compliance with some environmental conditions but they cannot reject a project before it is constructed. The contribution of this sector to air and water pollution is now proven.”

Predictably, the new notifications were praised by the Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of India, or CREDAI.