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1.
INTRODUCTION TO THE TECHNICAL EIA
GUIDANCE MANUALS PROJECT
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is a process of identifying, predicting,
evaluating and mitigating the biophysical, social, and other relevant effects of
development proposals prior to major decisions being taken and commitments made.
These studies integrate the environmental concerns of developmental activities into the
process of decision-making.
EIA has emerged as one of the successful policy innovations of the 20th Century in the
process of ensuring sustained development. Today, EIA is formalized as a regulatory tool
in more than 100 countries for effective integration of environmental concerns in the
economic development process. The EIA process in India was made mandatory and was
also given a legislative status through a Notification issued in January 1994. The
Notification, however, covered only a few selected industrial developmental activities.
While there are subsequent amendments, this Notification issued on September 14, 2006
supersedes all the earlier Notifications, and has brought out structural changes in the
clearance mechanism.
The basic tenets of this EIA Notification could be summarized into the following:
Pollution potential as the basis for prior environmental clearance based on pollution
potential instead of investment criteria; and
Decentralization of clearing powers to the State/Union Territory (UT) level
Authorities for certain developmental activities to make the prior environmental
clearance process quicker, transparent and effective mechanism of clearance.
Devolution of the power to grant clearances at the state level for certain category of the
developmental activities / projects is a step forward to fulfill the basic tenets of the re-
engineering i.e., quicker, transparent and effective process but many issues come on its
way of functional efficiency. These issues could be in technical and operational domains
as listed below:
Technical issues
Ensuring level playing ground to avoid arbitrariness in the decision-making process
Classification of projects which do not require public hearing and detailed EIA
(Category B2)
Variations in drawing Terms of Reference (ToR) of EIA studies for a given
developmental activity across the States/UTs
Varying developmental-activity-specific expertise requirement for conducting EIA
studies and their appraisal
Availability of adequate sectoral experts and variations in competency levels
Inadequate data verification, cross checking tools and supporting institutional
framework
Technical EIA Guidance Manual for Industrial Estates October 2009
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Introduction
Meeting time targets without compromising with the quality of assessments/ reviews
Varying knowledge and skill levels of regulators, consultants and experts
Newly added developmental activities for prior environmental clearance, etc.
Operational issues
State level /UT level EIA Authorities (SEIAA/UTEIAA) are formulated for the first
time and many are functioning
Varying roles and responsibilities of involved organizations
Varying supporting institutional strengths across the States/UTs
Varying manpower availability, etc.
1.1 Purpose
The purpose of developing the sector-specific technical EIA guidance manuals (TGM) is
to provide clear and concise information on EIA to all the stakeholders i.e., the project
proponent, the consultant, the reviewer, and the public. The TGMs are organized to cover
following:
Conceptual facets of an EIA
Details on the developmental activity including environmental concerns and control
technologies etc.
Operational aspects; and
Roles and responsibilities of various organizations involved in the process of prior
environmental clearance
For any given industry, each topic listed above could alone be the subject of a lengthy
volume. However, in order to produce a manageable document, this project focuses on
providing summary information for each topic. This format provides the reader with a
synopsis of each issue. Text within each section was researched from many sources, and
was usually condensed from more detailed sources pertaining to specific topics.
The contents of the document are designed with a view to facilitate in addressing relevant
technical and operational issues as mentioned in the earlier section. Besides, facilitates
various stakeholders involved in the EIA clearance process i.e.,
Project proponents will be fully aware of the procedures, common ToR for EIA
studies, timelines, monitoring needs, etc., in order to plan the projects/studies
appropriately.
Consultants across India will gain similar understanding about a given sector, and
also the procedure for EIA studies, so that the quality of the EIA reports gets
improved and streamlined
Reviewers across the states/UTs will have the same understanding about an industry
sector and would able to draw a benchmark in establishing the significant impacts for
the purpose of prescribing the ToR for EIA studies and also in the process of review
and appraisal.
Public who are concerned about a new or expansion projects, can have access to this
manual to know the manufacturing/production details, rejects/wastes from the
operations, choice of cleaner/control technologies, regulatory requirements, likely
Technical EIA Guidance Manual for Industrial Estates October 2009
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Introduction
environmental and social concerns, mitigation measures, etc., in order to seek
clarifications appropriately in the process of public consultation. The procedural
clarity in the document will further strengthen them to understand the stages involved
in clearance and roles and responsibilities of various organizations.
In addition, these manuals would substantially ease the pressure on reviewers at the
scoping stage and would bring in functional efficiency at the central and state levels.
1.2 Project Implementation
The Ministry of Environment & Forests (MoEF), Government of India took up the task of
developing sector-specific technical EIA guidance manuals for all the developmental
activities listed in the re-engineered EIA Notification. The Infrastructure Leasing and
Financial Services (IL&FS), Ecosmart Limited (Ecosmart), has been entrusted with the
task of developing these manuals for 27 industrial and related sectors. Industrial Estate
(IE) is one of these sectors, for which this manual is prepared.
The ability to design comprehensive EIA studies for specific industries depends on the
knowledge of several interrelated topics. Therefore, it requires expert inputs from
multiple dimensions i.e., administrative, project management, technical, scientific, social,
economic, risk etc., in order to comprehensively analyze the issues of concern and to
draw logical interpretations. Thus, Ecosmart has designed a well-composed
implementation framework to factor inputs of the experts and stakeholders in the process
of finalization of these manuals.
The process of manual preparation involved collection & collation of the secondary
available information, technical review by sectoral resource persons and critical review
and finalization by a competent Expert Committee composed of core and sectoral peer
members.
The MoEF appreciates the efforts of Ecosmart, Expert Core and Peer Committee,
resource persons and all those who have directly and indirectly contributed to this
Manual. .
1.3 Additional Information
This TGM is brought out by the MoEF to provide clarity to all the stakeholders involved
in the ‘Prior Environmental Clearance’ process. As such, the contents and clarifications
given in this document do not withstand in case of a conflict with the statutory provisions
of the Notifications and Executive Orders issued by the MoEF from time-to-time.
TGMs are not regulatory documents. Instead these are the tools designed to assist in
successful completion of an EIA.
For the purpose of this project, the key elements considered under TGMs are: conceptual
aspects of EIA; developmental activity-specific information; operational aspects; and
roles and responsibilities of involved stakeholders.
This manual is prepared considering the Notification issued on September 14, 2006 and
the updates. For recent updates, if any, may please refer the website of the MoEF,
Government of India i.e., www.envfor.nic.in
Technical EIA Guidance Manual for Industrial Estates October 2009
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