To
Shri
Anil Madhav Dave
Union Minister for Environment, Forest
and Climate Change
Government
of India
New
Delhi
Sub:12
suggestions for making environment ministry effective in environmental protection
Dear Shri Dave Jee,
Namaskar!
I recollect the privilege of being with you in an
interactive session on “Right to water bodies –an approach to policy formation”
held on 3rd October, 2010 in Kolkata.
It was co-organsied by Director of Fisheries, West Bengal. Having known you
I wish to make few suggestions to make your tenure as a minister fruitful and
purposeful.
You have a reputation for sensitivity towards
ecology in general and Narmada in particular but environmental researchers and
activists are keeping their fingers crossed because an ideology of “development
at any cost” is creating an impression that environmental regulations are a hurdle
in the process of financial growth.
As you are aware the threat to the integrity of the
natural systems is a threat to human health, and such threats have become
routine because of myopic industrial agriculture, blind urban development,
regressive transport systems and criminal neglect of non-human species.
While legislative safeguards for environmental
protection do seem to exist on paper, homicidal ecological lawlessness has led
to rampant industrial pollution, soil erosion, agricultural pollution, and
genetic erosion of plant resources. This trend must be arrested in right earnest.
It is quite crucial and merit your attention.
It is evident that the Cabinet Committee on
Economic Affairs (CCEA), which gives mandate to your ministry, is not alive to
the collapsing ecosystem. The stark question is whether the CCEA will let you make
the structural changes required in terms of reversing the current policies
which have resulted in manifest adverse impact on environmental health or
whether poisoning of our blood streams and amputation of river basin systems
would continue to be deemed collateral damage.
Be it blood contamination, congenital disorders,
preventable but incurable cancer or extinction of known and unknown living
species on our planet, it creates a compelling logic to re-examine the premises
of Industrial Revolution and design a new one. In the developed world the model
of development is under interrogation because of environmental problems.
Between 1975 and 1995 the Indian economy grew 2.5
times, industrial pollution went up four-fold, and vehicular pollution went up
eight-fold. This analysis seems factually correct but it has ended up
internalising the pollution and externalising the human cost of pollution. In
such a context, health indicators of the deteriorating environment is witnessed
in terms of a double burden of disease but the political class seems to have
been rendered spineless by the corporate empires.
I submit that a beginning appears to have been made
with your appointment after a long while but environmental crisis merits more
than rhetoric or cosmetic solutions. If one were to identify some key areas which
deserve your immediate and urgent remedial attention, it would be:
1. Publish a database of environmental criminals and
fugitives with their photographs and profiles with the name of the companies
which fall under the 64 heavily polluting industries under the Red category
(highly polluting industries), 34 moderately polluting industries ('Orange'
category) and 54 'marginally' polluting units ('Green' category). Also publish
a list of India's Most Wanted Environmental Criminals with wanted
posters.
2. The environment ministry must get enhanced
budgetary allocation for rejuvenating the decaying institutional infrastructure
including the Central Pollution Control Board. One parliamentary report too
calls for saving the CPCB, the nodal body for regulating environmental norms.
Currently, environment clearance, compliance and monitoring are in a very sorry
state. It should be strengthened.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and
Technology, Environment and Forests said the CPCB is being 'reduced to a
near-defunct body'. The 141-page report of the steering committee on the
environment and forests sector for the eleventh five year plan prepared by
Planning Commission deals with environment and development. It refers to 'the
regulatory challenge' and states: 'In the past some years, intensive economic
growth, which has increased economic wealth, has led to massive pollution and
degradation of the natural environment. One of the main reasons for this is
that the regulatory and institutional framework to control pollution and degradation
of natural resources is unable to keep pace with the rapidly changing economic,
social and environmental situation in the country.'
'The number of polluting activities -- and the
quantum of pollution generated -- has increased in the last several years.
Furthermore, newer and newer environmental challenges are thrown up -- from
solid waste disposal, to disposal and recycling of hazardous waste, to toxins
like mercury, dioxins and activities like ship-breaking to management of
vehicular pollution.'
It is high time environmental regulation keeps pace
with environmental crimes. Even Interpol has a Pollution & Environment
Crime Working group; India too needs one.
3. Stopping transboundary movement of polluting
technologies, hazardous wastes, creating an inventory of hazardous chemicals
and wastes besides conducting an environmental health audit along with the
ministry of health to ascertain the body burden through investigation of
industrial chemicals, pollutants and pesticides in umbilical cord blood. In one
such study in the US, of the 287 chemicals detected in umbilical cord blood,
180 were known to cause cancer in humans or animals, 217 are toxic to the brain
and nervous system, and 208 cause birth defects or abnormal development in
animal tests. Absence of such studies in India does not mean that a similar
situation does not exist in India. Until and unless we diagnose the current
unacknowledged crisis, how will he regulatory bodies predict, prevent and
provide remedy.
Currently, India is a victim of the unfolding
Lawrence Summers Principle. Lawrence Summers, director of the White House's
National Economic Council for US President Barack Obama as a World Bank chief economist,
sent a memo to one of his subordinates justifying transfer of harmful chemicals
from developed countries to developing countries. Indian position on the Basel
Convention, Rotterdam Convention and the recently adopted IMO Convention
reveals the same.
Our ecological space is a living entity but it is
faced with the cannibalistic propensities of illegitimately totalitarian
scientism which is married with political consensus. Its linear, piecemeal and
closed technological thinking fails to acknowledge that no unlimited
development is possible in the nature of things.
4. Adopt mandatory emission cuts as a national,
domestic and enforceable objective even as we affirm the validity of the
'principle of historical responsibility' which is indisputable and
incontrovertible. The current stance which states, 'subjecting national
aspirational efforts to an international compliance regime may result in lower
ambitions' is fine but our ability to reach a certain emission reduction target
under a national plan as a national legal obligation would enhance India's
negotiating position. In fact the National Action Plan for Climate Change
should be revisited to ensure visible and truly 'credible actions' within our
own framework.
It is inconsequential for citizens whether some
post-dated international humanitarian law is being followed in letter or not,
what is of consequence is whether or not its governmental actions factor in the
spirit behind a law that will have ramifications not only for the present
generation but also for the future generations. Disassociation with carbon
trade is also a must because benefits from it are suspect.
5. Get the National Water Policy, National
Environment Policy and the industrial policy rewritten for adoption of a river
basin approach to undo the unhealthy legacy of bulldozing rivers, flood plains,
forests, biodiversity, natural drainage etc in manner as if citizens and natural
processes are irrelevant.
The National Council for Applied Economic Research
has also made recommendations for the setting up the National Commission for
Basin Management. This is required also as a response to the UN's
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's fourth assessment report that
states, 'Glaciers in the Himalayas are receding faster than in any other part
of the world and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them
disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth
keeps warming at the current rate'.
The River Basin Authority must be fashioned in
manner that it does not remain a rubber stamp or a paper tiger because if all
industrial projects are cleared by Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, what
role can an effete body of the environment ministry do to undo the wrongs
committed by the CCEA? In fact, if one undertakes an investigation of
institutional accountability for Bhopal gas leak disaster, it is quite likely
that the buck would stop at the CCEA. The environment ministry must save itself
from its regressive influence.
6. Get a District wise state of environmental
health report prepared in order to assess the current state of the local ecosystems.
7. Restore Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification
of 2006, make it stringent by ensuring preparation of EIA reports by
independent institutions and abandon the proposed Environment Supplement Plan
(ESP).
8. Initiate process of setting up of functional environmental
courts in each district by introducing a Bill in the Parliament on the lines of
Human Rights Courts provided for in the Protection of Human Rights Act.
9. Revise the Draft Wetlands (Conservation
and Management) Rules, 2016 and come out with a fresh Draft for public comments
in the supreme interest of present and future generations and top safeguard the
wetlands which face grave threats from vested interests.
10. Stop giving environmental clearances to asbestos based factories and
projects in keeping with the 19 page long Vision Statement on Environment
and Human Health of your ministry which states “4.3.1 Environmental epidemiological studies are
required to be carried out near to industrial estates and hazardous waste
disposal sites to estimate the extent of health risks including from asbestos.
Alternatives to asbestos may be used to the extent possible and use of asbestos
may be phased out.”
It may be noted that Kerala Human Rights Commission has
passed an order dated January 31, 2009 with the following recommendations: a) The State Government will replace asbestos
roofs of all school buildings under its control with country tiles in a phased
manner. b) The Government will take steps to see that the schools run under the
private management also replace the asbestos roofs with country tiles by fixing
a time frame. c) The Government should see that in future no new school is
allowed to commence its functions with asbestos roofs. I seek your
intervention to ensure strict compliance with this order and to get a
Register of asbestos laden buildings prepared so that a road map can be
prepared for their decontamination. The state ought to prepare a Register
of those workers who handle asbestos and the victims of primary and
secondary exposure from asbestos fibers.
The Concept Paper dated
September 2011 of Union Ministry of Labour, Government of India presented at
the EU-India Seminar that reveals that the Central Government is planning to
eliminate asbestos from the country due to health reasons. The paper is
available on Ministry's website.
Hon’ble Supreme Court's order dated January 27, 1995 and
World Health Organisation (WHO)'s outline for the Development of National
Programmes for elimination of asbestos related diseases' make a case for stopping
all asbestos based products to prevent the imminent public health crisis as a
consequence of which more than 55 countries have banned all forms of asbestos.
It will be great if you can pursue remedial measures for
present and future generations before children get engulfed in the epidemic of
incurable but preventable asbestos related diseases. This is of seminal
importance to prevent preventable diseases and deaths.
11. Make sure that each central ministry has an environment
department which submits a report on the ecological footprint of their actions
and decisions.
12. Stop world's biggest and
most ecologically disastrous project diverting rivers for interlinking them
rivers and desist from pursuing the Ganga waterway project. ILR project can
lead to Ara Sea kind of disaster.
The terms of reference of the constituted ‘Task Force’ on
Interlinking of Rivers’ chaired by B N Navalawala which reveals that Hon’ble
Supreme Court’s order dated February 27, 2012 in petitioner-less Writ Petition
(Civil) No. 512 of 2002 is based on a flawed assumption that there is consensus
and unanimity among the states in the matter of Interlinking of Rivers
concept/project. The attached release of the Union Ministry of Water Resources,
River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation issued by Press Information Bureau
states that the Task Force “would also device suitable mechanisms for bringing
about speedy consensus amongst the states and also propose suitable
organizational structure for implementing the Interlinking of Rivers. The Task
Force would also try to forge a consensus amongst the states in order to take
forward the speedy implementation of the Interlinking of Rivers Program.”
It is noteworthy that the terms of reference of the earlier Task
Force on Inter-Linking of Rivers under the Chairmanship of Shri Suresh P.
Prabhu that was constituted on December 13, 2002 was also tasked to “Devise
suitable mechanism for bringing about speedy consensus amongst the States”
revealing absence of unanimity on the implementation of ILR project.
The judgment in the petitioner-less “Networking of Rivers” case
inconsistently admitted absence of consensus and unanimity among the states in
the matter of Interlinking of Rivers concept/project and still erroneously went
on to conclude that there is unanimity and consensus.
The judgment dated February 27, 2012 in the “Networking of Rivers”
case was authored by Justice Swatanter Kumar on merits rigorous scrutiny
because it seems to establish a disturbing precedent by assuming “consensus”
and “unanimity” although 18 States chose not respond to the notice of Supreme
Court of India “despite the grant of repeated opportunities to do so.”
The moot point is how to solve the water problem. As per the
Planning Commission’s Tenth Plan document, there are 383 ongoing major and
medium projects awaiting completion, 111 of which are pending since pre-fifth
Plan period i.e. more than 26 years. All these can be completed within five to
eight years, yielding an additional potential of about 14 million hectares at a
cost of Rs 77,000 crore as estimated by the plan task force, now raised to Rs
100,000 crore.
The second component listed in the Plan is development of minor
irrigation, mostly in the eastern and northeastern regions. The total potential
assessed is 24.5 million hectares with a total investment of Rs 54,000 crore,
of which the government is expected to provide only Rs 13,500 crore, the
balance coming from beneficiary farmers and institutional loans. The cost per
hectare is only Rs 20,000 and gestation period almost nil, against a cost of Rs
100,000 and 12 years’ gestation in case of major and medium projects. The third
equally beneficial scheme mentioned in the Plan is the groundwater recharge
master plan prepared by the Central Ground Water Board needing Rs 24,500 crore
to trap 36 billion cubic metres of water annually.
These measures are quite clearly better than the project of
networking of rivers. The concerned judges would serve the ecological interest
of the subcontinent better if they could pay heed to these proposals of the
Plan document. Judges at all levels have, by and large, justified the
confidence reposed in them. But there is scope for improvement in several
spheres and it is up to the judiciary itself to rectify the defects in its role
and prove to the public that as long as there is an efficient, impartial,
independent and incorruptible judiciary, democracy in India will be safe from
the tyranny of the executive and also the judiciary.
The apex court had come to the rescue of a river in the Kamalnath
motel case where a hotel company which had stakes of Kamalnath, the then Union
Environment Minister (presently Union Commerce Minister) had unilaterally taken
a number of measures to divert the course of Beas River near Kulu-Manali in
Himachal Pradesh (for instance, earthmovers and bulldozers were used to create
a new channel) when floods threatened land in its possession. The court used
the Public Trust Doctrine to define the state as a trustee of natural resources.
Government’s National Environmental Policy refers to Public Trust
Doctrine saying, “The State is not an absolute owner, but merely a trustee of
all natural resources, which are by nature meant for public use and enjoyment,
subject to reasonable conditions, necessary to protect the legitimate interest
of a large number of people, or for matters of strategic national interest.”
The NEP says, “The broad direct causes of rivers degradation are,
in turn, linked to several policies and regulatory regimes. The result is
excessive cultivation of water intensive crops near the headwork’s, which is
otherwise inefficient, waterlogging, and alkali-salinization of soil.” It also
refers to factors causing reduced flows in the rivers and seeks to ensure
maintenance of adequate flows. As an action plan for river systems, the NEP
expresses its intent to…“mitigate the impacts on river flora and fauna, and the
resulting change in the resource base for livelihoods, of multipurpose river
valley projects, power plants, and industries.”
The success of a democracy, especially one based on a federal
system, depends largely on an impartial and independent judiciary endowed with
sufficient powers to administer justice. Judges can import their personal views
in interpreting a statute but they must not assume the role of guardians of
public policy and should not play god. A distinction must be drawn between
personal idiosyncrasy and incorporation of new economic and social policies in
the interpretation of law.
The proposal of networking peninsular and Himalayan rivers emerges
from a lack of rigorous evaluation of the ecological impacts which would prove
disastrous not only to the fishery, but also to the biodiversity and biotic
processes that have evolved over the past hundred of millions of years. One
cannot expect the judges and legislators to understand but venturing into an
area of their ignorance is against all canons of wisdom.
In the case in question the judges went on to advise the
government that in case consent was not forthcoming from the states, the
government should consider passing a legislation to obviate consent of the
states for this project. Since criticizing the judges is a criminal offense,
the advocates of resistance who are not shackled by their funding sources from
among the citizenry and civil society need to keep a watch on the impeachable
antecedents and future activities of the judges and legislators because it is
quite possible that legislation for ILR or nationalization of rivers may get
introduced in the Parliament. The rampant violation of the statutory principles
and natural justice requires a vigilant citizens’ network as opposed to fund
agency driven initiatives to investigate as to why the judges and legislators
appear to have sold themselves to the ideology of the free market undermining
ecosystem beyond repair and democratic rights of its citizens to bring the
truth about it public domain.
The networking rivers does not mean drawing some mega litres from
one river and pouring it into another like one does with static containers, or
even with canals. The ramifications are much wider because a river is not only
the water that flows or the channel, which holds the flow rather its much more.
The river is the dynamic face of the landscape. “In the drama of history, the
ecosystem is not the stage setting; it is the cast”.
In the past the court has rightly and consistently held that large
infrastructure projects invariably raise technical and policy issues which the
courts are not equipped to handle. In view of the reasons cited above and
especially an evolving international law on transboundary rivers there is a
clear case for the apex court to review its order on “networking rivers”.
As per National Water Policy, 2002, “Water resources development
and management will have to be planned for a hydrological unit such as drainage
basin as a whole or for a sub-basin, multi-sectorally, taking into account
surface and ground water for sustainable use incorporating quantity and quality
aspects as well as environmental considerations.” Outlining India’s National
Water Policy in 2002, the then Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee said
that the policy should be people-centered and those communities ought to be
recognized as the “rightful custodians of water.”This clearly shows that
networking of river is contrary to the Government’s stated policy which means
vested interests are so powerful that they can subvert both executive’s and
judiciary’s role.
Given such a background the judgment in the Writ Petition (Civil)
No. 512/2002 is very crucial. In the days, months and years ahead it is likely
to reveal Indian Government’s exact policy vis-à-vis networking of rivers and
court’s considered response while dealing with contempt applications in the
face of sub continental protest. This case is likely to give birth to a new
international legal order to safeguard the legitimate regime of river basins
from the obsolete notions of ‘conquest over nature’, ‘surplus’ rivers and
taming rivers. If the environmental movement in the Indian sub-continent fails
to stop this mega project, it would mean nothing short of a premature death of
the movement itself and acceptance of the proposed rewriting of sub-continent’s
geography with painful consequences as fait accompli.
I wish to draw your attention towards the pearls of wisdom from Mahabharata that
describes the Divine Being saying, “The mountains are his bones. The earth is
his fat and flesh. The oceans are his blood. Space is his stomach. The Wind is
his breath. Fire is his energy. The rivers are his arteries and veins. Agni and
Soma, otherwise called the Sun and the Moon, are called his eyes. The firmament
above is his head. The earth is his two feet. The cardinal and subsidiary
points of the horizon are his arms,” the new government should reject the idea
of “inter-linking of rivers based on feasibility”. This is narrated by Bhishma
in conversation with Yudhishthira while referring to the reply of sage Bhrigu
to sage Bharadwaja. This verse occurs in the Shanti
Parva of Mahabharata.
I had submitted that interlinking of rivers entails mutilation of
the veins and arteries of the divine nature. Rivers shape the terrain and lives
of people by its waters which are always in a dynamic state. Breaking this
dynamic would unleash forces of uncontrolled change and invite the ‘law of
unintended consequences’. Let’s remember the terrible Aral Sea disaster caused
by the mistakes of Soviet Union in which two Siberian rivers were
diverted. If water scarcity is the perennial question, there better
answers like the groundwater recharge master plan available with the
government. Water can be made to “Reach to All Homes, Farms and Factories” by
adopting this plan as well at a minimal cost.
It submitted that whenever there is conflict between financial
gains and rivers, the latter must get priority over monetary benefits because
by any yard stick economic value of a free flowing river is bigger than dammed
and mutilated rivers. The capitalist, communist and colonial legacy of
treating rivers as material flow that flow through pipelines must be abandoned
and rivers must be treated as living beings that nourished our civilization for
centuries and can nourish all the coming generations if cannibalistic tendency
of diverting waters in bottles, dams and banks is stopped.
With regard to pollution in rivers, if the Prime Minister can
demonstrate the political will to stop all the effluents and sewage from
entering into river streams through a single executive decision, he would have
done an exemplary act of arresting ecological collapse and for safeguarding the
quality of blood flowing in veins and arteries of the present and future
generations. Notably, one of the aims of the ILR project was dilution of
pollution, disregarding its implications for the clean rivers. NWDA is under
structural compulsion to push these ecologically destructive projects envisaged
in 1970s to justify their continued existence. NCAER, NWDA and their promoters
remain trapped in pre-climate crisis era wherein “taming of rivers”, dams were
temples and not outcome of disease of gigantism and conquest over nature was
considered part of scientific temper with which rivers could be murdered with
impunity. The ToRs of the Task Force of 2002 and 2015 and court orders of 2002
and 2012 reveal that proponents of ILR project are frozen in a time warp.
In view of the above and the collective wisdom of the past and the
present and responsibility towards coming generations besides concerns for
non-human species there is a compelling reason to abandon ILR project for the
sake of sanity and humanity.
While a beginning can be made with the above 12 steps,
it must be realised that the economic ideology that has led to the current
global financial crisis is the same ideology that is accountable for the
ongoing ecological disorder of the lunatic ilk.
Therefore, nothing short of the death of the old
industrial policies of the pre-climate crisis era and the rebirth of an
enlightened policy-making that takes into account intergenerational equity with
regard to natural resources would be sufficient. I am quite hopeful that you
will be able to undo the regressive legacy of past years.
I
will be happy to share more information and relevant documents in this regard.
Thanking
you in anticipation
Yours
faithfully
Gopal
Krishna
ToxicsWatch
Alliance (TWA)
Mb:
09818089660, 08227816731
Tel/Fax:
91-11-26517814
Email: 1715krishna@gmail.com
Web: www.toxicswatch.org
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