Since 2014, the National Democratic Alliance government has carried out a series of changes in India’s environmental laws aiming to simplify them and promote ease of business. Many of such changes were marred by controversies as well. As the NDA government returns to power with a mandate bigger than 2014, activists fear dilutions of the green laws and rules against the interests of the tribal people and forest dwellers would continue unabated. The union environment already has, on its table, an amendment in the Indian Forest Act 1927, revision of the national forest policy and the new set of rules for the environment clearance regime. Farmer leaders hope that the central government would also take steps to solve the woes of the agriculture sector.
With the renewed mandate that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government has received, there is a likelihood of it continuing its environmental policies, focusing on the ease of business and simplification of green laws.
The new government already has some major policy decisions on the table waiting for approval. These changes, some of which were proposed in the last 100 days, are related to the amendments in the Indian Forest Act (IFA) 1927, an overhaul of the Environment Impact Assessment notification 2006 and the new National Forest Policy.
In the last five years, the government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, introduced a series of changes in the country’s environmental and forest laws which civil society groups termed as a dilution of the rules, attack on tribal rights and opening up of forest sector for private players.
In March 2019, the central government’s Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) had proposed amendments to the over 90-year-old Indian Forest Act 1927 (IFA) and sent a letter to all states seeking their opinion. The proposed amendments recommended more powers to the forest authorities, encouraged large scale afforestation for carbon sequestration including involvement of private players and enhancement in penalties for protection of the forests.
The civil society groups have already announced their opposition to these amendments stating that they will lead to further injustice to the forest dwellers. The groups have promised to take the matter to court in case the government goes ahead with the amendments.
Besides this, the central government has also been looking at updating the national forest policy, the draft of which has already been made public but is yet to be finalised. The draft of the forest policy had also come under criticism for encouraging the participation of the private sector for undertaking afforestation and reforestation activities in degraded forest areas. But that was not a stand-alone proposal as the central government in December 2018 came out with a report that talked about leasing of wasteland to the corporate sector for re-greening it.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Bharatiya Janata Party’s headquarters in New Delhi after the party’s victory in India’s parliamentary elections. Photo by Mayank Aggarwal/Mongabay
Subsequently, in April 2019, the MoEFCC turned its attention to another major environmental regulation – the Environment Impact Assessment notification 2006 (EIA) – which governs the environment clearance regime across the country.
The ministry has sent a zero draft of the proposed changes to replace the 2006 EIA notification with the 2019 version to all states, seeking their opinion. However, the point of contention is the changes proposed in the zero draft notification. It contains changes that environment ministry has already tried to bring in the 2006 notification in the last two or three years but failed after activists approached legal forums.
“If you go by what has happened in the last five years there is nothing to be confident about. In the last five years, not one concrete action was taken to protect the environment. One can only hope that in the next five years there will at least be some positive action to deal with environmental crisis,” environmental lawyer Ritwick Dutta told Mongabay-India.
“I think the government should have a rethink on it, keeping in mind the fact that proposed changes in both the laws – IFA Act 1927 and EIA notification – were circulated when elections were going on. One is for the environment while another one deals with tribal people and forest dwellers. What is left after this? The government should not go ahead with these two damaging changes,” Dutta said.
Modi government’s track record doesn’t inspire much confidence Failure to ensure proper implementation of the Forest Rights Act 2006, during its tenure, was another issue for which Modi government came under heavy criticism. A prominent example of the government’s apathy towards FRA was the recent case in the Supreme Court where eviction of millions of tribal and forest dwellers was ordered. However, after public pressure, the central government…
