Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is an analytical tool, which is carried out to identify the effects of a developmental project and to evaluate the scope of environmental management. It is widely adapted by industry and regulatory agencies to assess, and give clearance to development projects that are often set up in the name of the public good. However, the issue of public participation in such development projects has, of late, assumed significant dimensions as the long-term environmental consequences have become clearer in the public mind. Hence, people’s organisations and voluntary agencies have begun to articulate the view that EIAs are too technical and are presently to narrowly defined to deal with the environment and vulnerable populations in a holistic and socially equitable manner.

The Hazards Centre has, therefore, frequently been approached to analyse such EIAs from people’s perspective. In 2004 alone the Centre has provided critiques of the Chhattisgarh Mineral and Industrial Policies, for the Chhattisgarh Action Research Team and Ekta Parishad; the environmental impact of the expansion of Kanoria Chemicals, for the Agrindus Institute; the setting up of a power project on the Bhilangana river, for the Jan Chetna Andolan; the possible impacts of the rural roads being constructed in Bastar under the Pradhan Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojana, for Parivartan; and the Environment Management Plan of the Bina Open Cast Project, for the Banwasi Sewa Ashram. The broad frame of the Centre’s efforts has been to identify the impending (and unaccounted) adverse impacts of implemented, new, or extension developmental projects on the biophysical environment and on socio-economic health of the affected communities. The Centre has been requested for another study on the EIA of Steel Plant Expansion Projects of Jindal Steel, for the Raigarh Bachao Sangarsh Samiti. It is anticipated that there will be significant demand for more such analyses from people’s organisations in the coming years. Hence, the Centre wished to convert this ongoing activity into a project that will undertake this work systematically.

our work