Ecological rules are economic guard rails

Last month, Supreme Court quashed the provision in Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Regulations 2020 that regularises violations of environmental norms in projects. This intervention was long overdue and should give environmental well-being its due necessary place in the hierarchy of norms.

Privileging of economic/developmental activities over environmental well-being and sustainability has been a constant feature of environmental rule-making and implementation based on a false binary. The court was adjudicating legality of a 'get out jail free card' provision in the latest EIA that had also been part of earlier iterations. A 2010 memo amending the 2006 EIA set out a pathway for new expansion projects that had made 'substantial physical progress relating to construction' and 'significant investment' before obtaining environmental clearance. Perpetrating a wrong, EIA 2020 codified and expanded this amendment.

Regulations that protect environmental well-being through guard rails for human activities are not just desirable but essential for safeguarding economic growth and development, the very object of much corner-cutting. Closing this loophole ensures regulatory certainty critical for investment and economic development. Governments - both central and state - must create a robust and transparent system to address non-compliance. They must recognise that 'one response does not fit all violations', and increasing the cost of non-compliance will act as a deterrent. This must not be a reincarnation of the fait accompli approach, but a transparent, science-based assessment. Together with a magnitude of order penalty, it will make a business case for compliance. Ecological concerns and solutions are economic concerns and solutions.