The laws and policies concerning the environment have been altered significantly by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lead National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the last 10 years and natural resources have been plundered like never before in India’s history, said a report by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, a human rights group, Fridays for Future (FFF), a climate justice movement group, and Bahutva Karnataka, a civil society group based out of Karnataka.
In their report titled, ‘Guarantee Check: State of India’s Environment over the last decade - An exacerbating crisis,’ the two groups jointly said that the Union government has evaded environmental assessments and had been silencing environmental activists who highlight the unsustainability of development. The report pointed to the Environmental Performance Index where India has slid from the 125th position out of 180 countries in 2012 to the bottom of the list - 180th - in 2022 even as it rose to the 63rd position in the World Bank’s Doing Business report in 2019 from the 142nd position in 2014.
Faster clearances and dilution of laws
According to the report, the Ministry of Environment has granted 12,496 clearances including Coastal Regulation Zone clearances, Wildlife clearances, Forest and Environmental clearances. in 2022, when compared to just 577 clearances in 2018. Meanwhile, several laws and policies including the protections under the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification, 2006, Mines and Minerals Act, 2023, and the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, were altered to profit private industrialists, the report said.
The protections under the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification, 2006, underwent several amendments including the exemption of public consultation before granting clearances that benefitted private industries and promoted unsustainable development, the report said.
The Mines and Minerals Act, in 2023, was also diluted to ease out mining clearances and licences opening up more opportunities for the private sector. “The eastern states of Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand have witnessed a massive onslaught on account of mining, affecting the rights of the Adivasis living there and destroying age-old forests,” said a statement.
The report also referred to the amendment made to the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, in 2023, which attempted to change the definition of forests and could have been detrimental to several forest areas that were previously granted protection under the law. Although the Supreme Court (SC) intervened and read down the definition, approximately 25% of India's forested areas are at risk, the report said.
The report said that between 2014 and 2020, only less than one percent forest clearances (allowing forest diversion for non-forestry activities i.e. facilitating deforestation) were rejected by the government. Between 2014 and 2023, the forest land lost to industries and developmental projects totalled 1.5 lakh hectares.
The report also highlighted the amendments made to the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification of 2011. In 2019, for instance, the CRZ notification reduced the ‘No Development Zone’ alongside the sea to 50 metres from the previously mandated 200 metres, thereby opening up the coasts for commercial constructions. It noted that projects such as the Great Nicobar Island (GNI) project, which aims to allocate 130 square kilometres of forest area for infrastructure development, including the construction of an airport, have been fast-tracked by the ruling government.
Clamp down on environmental activists
Henri Tiphagne, national working secretary of the Human Rights Defenders Alert-India, who was quoted in the report, said environmental activists have faced illegal arrests and had their phones taken away in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Odisha. Six environmental defenders who were protesting against the Vedanta plant in Thoothukudi, Tamil Nadu, were killed in a police firing.
The report said three volunteer-run environmental groups, who opposed the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification in 2020 faced online surveillance and internet bans by the government. It also pointed to the arrest of Disha Ravi, a 22-year-old climate activist, who supported the farmers’ protest against the farm laws in Delhi, in 2021.
Such actions by the government points at the lack of formulated guidelines meant to protect environmental activists by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Henri said.