A Study of Changes in Provisions of Environmental Clearances and their Political-Economic Perspective

Abstract

India has been one of the worst hit countries due to Climate change. Frequent and increasingly severe draughts, excessive and deficient rains, changing regional climate cycles, growing effects of Al-nino are some of the symptoms of the cost Indians in general and Indian farmers in particular are forced to bear. What is the responsibility of various stakeholders in inviting and aggravating this calamity. There appears to be a clash between environment and economic development. Post liberalisation there has been increasing thrust on development even at the cost of environmental degradation. Successive governments have been instrumental in diluting the provisions of environmental clearance and making it easy for the industry to violate environmental laws. Easier land acquisition provisions, undermining the rights of tribal and avoiding environmental impact assessment in clearing development projects etc. have been quite obvious in policy making. More importantly during COVID 19 such clearances were quite rampant, especially in case of thermal power projects, mining and similar other industries. Such policies have aggravated the already precarious environmental conditions in India. This paper attempts to study provisions of environmental clearance and find a link between such policies and the cost of environmental degradation.