The environment ministry has proposed environmental audits to review projects and activities that come under stringent environment protection legislations. One of the objectives of the audits would be to keep a check on pollution and ensure self-compliance.
The draft notification put up for comments about two weeks ago states that audits by independent empanelled agencies will help fulfilling the obligations on Climate Action, including adoption of the principles of LiFE – Lifestyle for Environment and “further the efforts to strengthen environmental compliance through effective monitoring mechanism”. The project proponents, as per the draft, would also have the option of getting audits done by the government-certified auditors.
The experts, however, are of the view that although the step can “enhance regulatory frameworks”, environmental audits, even if notified, would most likely end up as another “tick mark” with no substantial improvement expected in the regulatory practices.
Himanshu Thakkar, coordinator, South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People told The WEEK, “The audits, no doubt, are important to check compliance. But, a lot would depend on the independence of the agency doing the audits, who makes the payment and who scrutinizes.”
“Years ago, the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) came as an important tool for informed decision-making but now it is just a tick mark in the scheme of things. In so many cases, criticism of the projects are communicated but no action is taken. There are a number of EIAs that are extremely bad in quality but not even one agency has been blacklisted so far.”
Thakkar fears that the new proposed environment audits would most likely end up being just another “tick mark.”
Some of the aspects of the notification, in fact, engender scepticism. The audits are exclusively a voluntary mechanism and not intended to be made mandatory for those entities who want to continue within the existing framework, reads the notification.
“The proposed third party environment audit is not an alternate to the existing system of compliance and monitoring through government agencies but is only to supplement the efforts of the government agencies, which will continue with their existing role of random inspection and verification,” it says. The draft also states that the environment auditors will be assigned randomly to a particular project through a computer-based online software programme integrated with the Parivesh portal of the ministry.
“Environmental audits are an important tool which can enhance regulatory and governance frameworks on one hand and influence industrial practice related to environmental compliance on the other,” says Kanchi Kohli, an independent legal and policy researcher. “However, they need to be enabled by both intent and incentives of actors that need to comply and those who need to monitor. This is especially the case when what is being proposed is voluntary in nature.”
Kohli added that environmental audits need to draw lessons from why compliance has been particularly difficult to enforce and has remained a conversation between regulators and project proponents.
