Govt keeps Gadgil’s report on flawed Environment Assessment reports for mining leases under wraps Goa govt blatantly asks MoEF to remove suspension of ECs, even though Gadgil report indicts the manner in which the EIAs were done; Gadgil recommended that ECs should be reviewed every five years, Govt ignores it all
By *TEAM HERALD* | 10 Feb, 2015, PANJIM: Since October 2013, a document of immense significance, on the manner in which Environmental Impact Assessments were conducted and Environmental Clearances given for mining leases has been lying with the State government. The report, commissioned by the Government of Goa, under the guidance of Professor Madhav Gadgil, has indicted the government and “project proponents” (mining lease holders) of “getting legally mandated clearances as quickly and with little effort or involvement of the society at large as possible”. The report in its summary states that project proponents themselves select an agency to do the EIA and pay for the same ‘naturally the project proponents are interested in maximizing their own economic gains and ignoring as much as they can, the costs imposed on the environment society at large”. What is of immense significance is that the government has conveniently chosen not to act on the report, or even acknowledge it, even as it renewed all the 88 leases and then asked the Ministry of Environment and Forests to revoke the suspension of all the Environmental Clearances it had imposed on September 14, 2012. The Goa government did not place in public domain this little known report of Madhav Gadgil on Goa ECs and EIAs, which specifically outlines the “absence of any proper system of inspection of mines, no proper implementation of Environmental Management Plans”. Titled, “Research Project on Assessing Quality of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), Compliance of Environmental Clearance (EC) Conditions and Adequacy of Environmental Management Plan (EMP) of Mining Industry in Goa”, guided by Professor Madhav Gadgil, it was submitted to the Department of Science and Technology in October 2013. While Herald has a copy of the report, the Department of Mines and Geology doesn’t. Director Mines Prasanna Acharya, when shown the report said, “I am not aware of this report.” One of its most significant recommendations was that “Environmental Clearances should not be once for all, but should be reviewed periodically, for instance, every five years.” This is a critical shift and an important component of the way forward plan from the government of Goa’s current stand that since ECs were granted for the life of the lease, every renewal extends the life of the lease and therefore the original EC would hold. “Why should ECs have to be taken afresh? The second renewal extends the life of the lease. So if the EC is valid till the time the lease exists, why should a fresh EC be needed?” Acharya told Herald, on Monday. Professor Gadgil debunks this and states that the “first flaw” of lease holders paying for the EIA and getting it done by their chosen company has to be rectified. This effectively makes all “life-long” leases fraudulent. Professor Gadgil makes two more points, based on the Shah Commission observations which question severely the legality of the ECs originally granted: a) Granting of ECs to mines within ten kilometers of Wild Life Sanctuaries (WLS) and National Parks (NP) without reference to the National Board of Wild Life as required; and b) Illegal transfer of mining leases to third parties. “The first is clearly an important issue from the perspective of our investigation as well, and the EIAs often provide wrong information in this context. Furthermore, the distances to WLS and NP mentioned in ECs are different from those claimed in EIAs”, the Gadgil report stated. Finally, the Gadgil report directly indicts the administration for not correcting the principal flaw of the professional agency preparing the EIA with the sole objective of helping the project proponent (lease holder). “The Public Hearing process is meant to partially correct this deficiency of the professional agency preparing the EIA neglecting or misrepresenting the costs imposed on the environment and society at large. For Public Hearings to serve this function the administrative agencies organizing Public Hearings must also act impartially and the professional agency preparing the EIA must be obliged to take the submissions made at the Public Hearing seriously and redo the EIAs. This, too, is not happening and is another shortcoming that must be corrected. Clearly, the government is in no mood to listen. Because if it did, very few mining leases would be in a position to get Environment Clearances.
