EIA has been legislated in India since 1994 as a requirement for Environmental Clearance (EC). We all know that in most cases, conduct of EIA is perceived more as a "permitting tool" than a process that stimulates alternatives, anticipates impacts/risks and prepares a prevention and control strategy/plan and importantly "value adds" to the original project/program proposal.
EIA reports are often prepared on the fly.
The EIA process is expected to be "concurrent" to project development and not a "terminal" activity when all configurations of the project are frozen. EIA process is also expected be transparent in communicating project and impact/risk related information to stakeholders and seek their involvement. Ground realities are however often different. How could we overcome this limitation?
One of major weaknesses of our EIA system is our project-limited approach. We haven't yet legislated regional, sectoral/strategic EIAs. We therefore miss consideration of cumulative and regional impacts and hence fail to safeguard environment on a regional basis. Our development plans for instance fail to mainstream environmental and social considerations
A lot can be done to improve the present system. I would like to open a discussion on this topic.
