c













  
 

!
 
  

  
    





  
 




 
 



  




  
 
  
 





   ! "


New Delhi 26/11/2010: A Raja- Nira Radia relationship blossomed during Raja¶s tenure
as environment Minister which that made environmental clearances for Radia¶s clients
easier sine 2006. Radia's influence at Environment Ministry was an open secret.
Actually the roots of the present telecom scam can be back traced to Raja¶s incarnation
as the environment minister when environmental clearances for projects brought
companies across sectors nearer to him. With the assistance of R K Chandolia, then a
Director, Planning & Coordination in the Environment Ministry and Radia, clearances
were granted at a supersonic speed.

The country is still handling the sins committed by him. Currently, 17,000 explosives
weighing 200 quintals are being detonated in Ludhiana Punjab. These explosives came
in 2006 the containers of scrap waste/hazardous in the name of recycling. These were
part of the same consignments that had caused explosions in the Bhushan Steel plant
in Sahibabad-Gaziababd area that killed several workers in 2006.

Since November 16, the Army¶s Bomb disposal Unit commenced its 75-80 day work to
detonate these bombs near the Mattewara forest area in Ludhiana, Punjab. The
residents of the villages in the vicinity have been evacuated from Sekhewal, Kalewal
and Haider Nagar villages and were directed to move to temporary shelters on the bed
of the Sutlej near Selkiana and Borreh villages.

So far only visual inspection has been done on a large variety of explosives ranging
from small bombs to artillery shells. There are unexploded bombs as well. The scrap
consignments have come from the Persian Gulf countries, they were perhaps used in
the 1991 Gulf War. Moreover, the presence of unexploded bombs and war materials
like artillery shells hints at their link with that war. Expressing security concerns, senior
officers of the unit said there should be proper measures in place to check import of war
materials from other countries to avoid a similar situation in the future. "This time the
explosives came along with scrap unknowingly. Next time they could land up in India by
design. We need to be very careful with imports. Raja Ministry allowed this. This
requires probe.
There is an unacknowledged and irreparable loss to India¶s ecological and natural
resources due to decisions taken by DMK ministers during their term as Environment
Ministers T R Baalu and Andimuthu Raja. A Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC)
should examine the environmental and pollution crimes of DMK Ministers while they
handled Environment Ministry.

First, a ship with dubious credentials leaves the shores of Denmark. Then a month later,
India allows it to beach at Alang, Gujarat's massive shipbreaking yard, for scrapping. In
between, it gets a new name and rules are flouted to let it in Riky, the Danish ship unlike
Le Clemenceau, the French ship (recalled by French court), sailed through the law
despite a letter from the Danish Environment Minister to Raja warning him about the
hazardous ship which had escaped from Denmark. The ship sailed in under the flag of
Roxa, a non-existent "country". The case is pending in the Supreme Court. (For
complete story see: http://www.indiatogether.org/2006/mar/env-riky.htm)

In the case of Blue Lady ship, Raja¶s ministry presented a fait accompli to the Supreme
Court, compelling it to pass judgment on fake technical grounds instead of legal
grounds in order to permit the dismantling of the dead ship by reversing key milestones
in environmental jurisprudence like it own landmark order, precautionary principle and
the polluter-pays principle.

It may be recalled that T R Baalu was the Union Minister of Environment & Forests from
13th October 1999 to 21st December 2003. He was succeeded by Andimuthu Raja who
was the Minister from 23rd May 2004 to 17th May 2007. During the DMK regime, the
Ministry had almost decided to grant a self-certification option to project proponents so
that project expansion and modernization proposals can be exempt from seeking
environment clearances through one of the major amendments proposed to the
Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) notification, 2006 which delineates a legal
process for the grant of environment clearances to industrial and infrastructure projects.

At the time of grating environmental clearance, a set of general and specific conditions
are laid out for companies which are project proponents to comply with. This is done to
ensure that adverse impacts on environment and communities can be minimized or
mitigated. Despite manifest acts of omissions and commissions during the tenure of
DMK ministers, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has so far failed to
take cognizance of the fact that non-compliance of environmental clearance conditions
like non-adherence of pollution reduction measures or dumping of industrial wastes,
construction debris etc into rivers or farms have severe adverse impacts on the
communities and the environment. The environmental clearances granted during the
DMK ministers¶ regime must be re-examined.


#$  



If one examines Raja¶s tenure as environment it¶s a story of what compelled

environmental groups to issue a Death Certificate to the Environment Ministry? EIA
Notification was first issued in 1994 under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. In 20
years from 1986 to 2006 the ministry cleared 4016 projects. According to the 2009
report by the environmental group Kalpavriksh entitled µCalling the Bluff: Revealing the
state of Monitoring and Compliance of Environmental Clearance Conditions¶, the
Ministry of Environment clears 80 to 100 projects every month with a range of
environment and social conditions. Under the new EIA 2006 Notification (issued when
Raja was the minister at least till May 2007), 2016 projects were cleared between 2006
and 2008 in just 2 years. The Ministry chose to have no database on the extent of
compliance of the projects it cleared. Those projects which were cleared under his
regime now merit rigorous scrutiny.

Unscrupulous behavior was rampant even during his term as Environment Minister.
Besides the projects, the appointments for the Expert Appraisal Committees (EACs),
their impudent conflicts of interests also need to be examined and their decisions
reviewed. It may be note that under the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA)
notification, 2006, the EACs¶ role at the 4th stage of environment clearance after the EIA
report and the public hearing is of enormous significance on sectors such as river valley
and hydropower projects, industries, mining, thermal power, infrastructure etc. It has
been noted that in 2005 that out of 64 members in EACs, almost two-thirds of members
were from the National Capital Region and Tamil Nadu. Is it that if there is a DMK
minister, most of the expertise on environment must come from its legislative
constituencies.

The illustrative case of P Abraham (former Secretary, Ministry of Power),

thechairperson of the EAC on River Valley and Hydroelectric Projects who was
appointed in April 2007 by Rajareveals the rot that had set in. Even though he was a
project promoter for hydropower projects, he was appointed to Chair the EAC on River
Valley and Hydroelectric Projects. After it got exposed by environmental groups, he was
made to resign by the present Environment Minister. But is this sufficient? Why has
Minister not yet ordered any investigation into all the clearances granted under
Abhraham¶s tenure?

Besides EAC on river valley and hydropower projects, EACs on industries, mining,
thermal power, infrastructure etc also need to be probed if they are Raja¶s appointees
and their decisions with regard to environmental clearance need to be revisited and if
need be cancelled as is being proposed in the matter of 2G licenses.

Let us also examine the tenure of T R Baalu. Nowhere in the world are rules to deal with
thieves, defaulters and criminals made in consultation with the culprits but environment
ministry under Baalu undertook the same unthinkable step to outline norms and action
points with the consent of the heavily polluting and defaulting industries making
mockery of the very notion of norms. Instead of making companies liable for their
environmental crimes, Baalu launched Government's Charter on Corporate
Responsibility for Environmental Protection (CREP) on March 13, 2003 in New Delhi.
The charter was prepared in an "immoral collusion and unholy partnership' with the
companies for 17 highly polluting industries. He had arbitrarily chosen 17 industries out
of the 64 heavily polluting industries under the Red category (highly polluting industries).
In private conversation, one Environment Ministry official said, this is just an exercise to
attract funds for fighting elections which is round the corner.

A Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) official revealed anonymously that in order to
prepare this impotent charter some 17 meetings were held almost within a month during
December 5, 2002- January 10, 2003. In fact as many as four meetings took place in a
day on some occasions. The "negotiations' for even this effete charter continued till
March 12, 2003.

While the issue of monitoring and implementation has also been left unaddressed,
Baalu said, "We will not punish any industry if it fails to implement the charter, as such
an act would be against the spirit of voluntary compliance.' In an illustration of
remarkable innocence, Baalu said, the Pollution Control Boards and the industry
together will check the pollution as if the industry will concede that it is polluting the
environment. This amounts to giving the industry the license to pollute.

This voluntary Charter on Corporate Responsibility for Environmental Protection

(CREP) is applicable to 2098 units in 17 categories of major polluting industries. These
include sugar industry (525 units), pharmaceuticals (397 units), distilleries (232 units),
leather (150 units), pesticide industry (150 units), cement (126 units), fertilizer industry
(111 units), dyes and dye intermediates (100 units), pulp and paper (96 units), thermal
power plants (83 units), petrochemicals (51 units), caustic soda industry (35 units), oil
refineries (17 units), iron and steel (8 units), aluminum (14 units), copper (6 units) and
zinc (4 units). It recommended toxic technologies like incinerators to deal with waste
and hazardous waste of all kinds. In fact there was a shocking proposal of making
import of incinerators duty free. Incinerators are dioxins emitting machines. Take the
case of Pesticide Industry, with 150 pesticides manufacturing units, the industry agreed
to take up segregation of waste streams for appropriate treatment and detoxication and
treatment of highly toxic waste streams will be taken up as suggested by the industry
itself. If the industry knew that segregation of and its appropriate treatment was
desirable, why have they been waiting for the charter to be prepared?

In the matter of cement industry there was lack of consensus on the exact radius of the
area around a cement plant which is vulnerable due to pollution. When conflict arose as
to whether 3 km belt would be severely affected or 7 km zone was likely to be under
threat of pollution, the then special secretary, Environment Ministry V K Duggal fixed a
limit of five km arbitrarily without any scientific basis. The Environment Ministry and
CPCB simply deleted wherever companies disagreed with something in the charter.
One clause in the charter required "all the major tannery units to obtain ISO 14000
certification by December 2004'. This was deleted. There was a section on tanneries
exploring the possibility of "sulphur recovery (for reuse) from sulphide-bearing effluent
by December 2005', it was also removed from the charter.

The chlor-alkali industry benefitted the most from such callous omissions. The draft
charter had proposed shutting down of all chlor-alkali plants, based on mercury cell
technology by December 2005 and had directed them to adopt membrane technology.
The deadline was removed from the charter. Had the time-frame for compliance been
retained, it would have seemed consistent with the incentive given in that year's Union
budget to encourage the shift to membrane cell technology. The incentive related to a
10 per cent reduction in customs duty on components of membrane cell technology.
This was to make their import cheaper.

In the charter, there was the condition about the industry needing to reduce mercury
consumption below 50 gm of product manufactured which is still very high.
Approximately mercury-based chlor-alkali units are being allowed to release 25-30
tonnes of mercury annually to produce 5-6 lakh tonnes of caustic soda whereas only 9
tonnes of mercury is consumed in western Europe to produce 60 lakh tonnes of caustic
soda.

Although the petrochemical sector and refineries is included in the list of highly polluting
industry, it was treated with notable softness. When asked what will be the punishment
for the industries, which do not follow the charter, Baalu said, the Charter incorporates
the voluntary initiatives and actions by the identified categories of industries to ensure
total compliance with pollution control norms and standards by the industry and it does
intend to punish industries.

Environment Ministry under Baalu expected the media and the civil society to believe
that these heavily polluting industries are mature enough and they do not need
punishment to mend their polluting practices.

There was no civil society consultation in the drafting of CREP. The two-day seminar at
Ashoka Hotel, New Delhi where the charter was released was akin to a market place
where bargaining for lax environmental standards by the industry to the detriment of
vulnerable natural capital had the field day.
Not surprisingly, less than 50% of the projects cleared in 2003 had monitoring reports
generated by the Environment Ministry and only 150 of the 223 projects cleared in the
year 2003 had at least one compliance report submitted by project authorities.

º


Such clearances by the regime led by DMK environment ministers did not take into
account issues such as soil erosion and land degradation of about 146.82 million
hectare area of country's total geographical area of 328.60 million hectares which is
about 45 per cent of the country's total geographical area, generation of 4.4 million
tonnes hazardous waste generated in the country, poisoning of the food chain as
evidenced in Punjab and detection of some 287 toxic chemicals in the umbilical cord
blood in the mother¶s womb, The resulting human costs due to callous and corrupt
decision making agencies like the one led by Baalu and Raja are bigger than the
financial loss in the spectrum scam.

If for no other reason at list for the sake of intergenerational equity, these clearances
require rigorous environmental auditing and inquiry to set matters right for future. For
this to happen, the environment ministry must be given enhanced budgetary allocation
for rejuvenating the decaying institutional infrastructure in the aftermath of the debris left
by Baalu and Raja. Underlining the same, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on
Science and Technology, Environment and Forests said the CPCB has been 'reduced
to a near-defunct body'. It is high time environmental regulation keeps pace with
environmental crimes. Even Interpol has a Pollution & Environment Crime Working
group; India too needs one. The weak environmental regulation must be strengthened
to stop transboundary movement of polluting technologies, hazardous wastes and to
create an inventory of chemicals and wastes besides conducting an environmental
health audit along with the ministry of health to ascertain the body burden through
investigation of industrial chemicals, pollutants and chemical pesticides in umbilical cord
blood.

A JPC on environmental crimes during DMK¶s period at environment ministry must

recommend publication of a database of environmental criminals and fugitives with their
photographs and profiles with the name of the companies which fall under the 64
heavily polluting industries under the Red category (highly polluting industries), 34
moderately polluting industries ('Orange' category) and 54 'marginally' polluting units
('Green' category). Also publish a list of °
  
 
    
 with wanted posters

For Details: Gopal Krishna, ToxicsWatch Alliance, New Delhi, Mb: 9818089660

E-mail: krishna2777@gmail.com , Website: www.toxicswatch.com,

Blog: toxicswatch.blogspot.com