Performance of expert appraisal committee for river valley and hydroelectric projects from 2006-2012 - Analysis by South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People

While developmental projects are beneficial for growth of an economy they do have negative impact on the environment. This impact varies significantly by project type, size and location. In order to identify, examine, assess and evaluate the probable impacts of a proposed project on the environment the Ministry of Environment & Forest (MoEF) in 2006, constituted different committees. The committees are called as Expert Appraisal Committees (EAC). An EAC committee on River Valley & Hydroelectric projects was also set up on these lines. In the backdrop this South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDARP) an informal network of organisation and individuals working on water issues has come up with an analysis on how have this committee performed till now? This document presents an analysis of the same.

From the time of its establishment in April 2007 the EAC for River Valley & Hydroelectric projects have had 63 meetings till December 2012. The document then goes on to critically analyse the functioning of the committee. It spells out the details of the steps that each project undergoes before getting clearance, where the lacunas exist in the committee, role of members, the process through which they are selected and role of the environment ministry are highlighted.

Following are the analysis given by SANDARP :

• EAC has strong pro project and anti people bias
• The EAC for RVP basically considers and clears hydropower projects
• All irrigation projects have been approved.
• EIAs have not properly assessed the full details of the land requirements of the projects.
•  There has been no credible public consultation process and there have been serious anomalies in public hearing processes.
• No Cumulative Impact Assessment (CIA) have been done when large number when large number of hydropower projects are proposed on number rivers.
• Couple of environment friendly recommendations that have been made by other committees have also been rejected by the EAC, without any convincing reasons.
• Hydropower and dams that the EAC considers have severe impact on natural resources and they are considered from the context of climate change.
• EAC arbitrarily recommending release particular percentage of water from rivers during lean and non-lean seasons without any consideration to any scientific, ecological or sociological basis, blanket for all rivers from Himalayan to peninsular.
• EAC does not ask for Biodiversity Impact Assessment of projects

The document then goes on to provide information on region wise status and analysis of the project wise clearances recommended by the EAC for RVP for the five regions of India, namely: North, North East, East, West and South.

Click here to access the full document.

To access project wise details from April 2007 to December 2012 click here.