The Draft National Environment Policy (NEP) 2004 has been released on the website of the Ministry of Environment and Forests at http://envfor.nic.in for information and extensive consultation with all concerned Departments of Central Government, State Governments, Experts, Industry Associations, Voluntary Organizations/Community Based organizations and Research Organizations working in the field of environment.
The draft Policy recommends bringing in regulatory reforms, enhancing and conserving environmental resources, setting up of environmental standards, adopting standardized management systems, and promoting environmental certification and indicators.
The Draft NEP, which has been prepared by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, in consultation with experts, is a response to the national commitment to mainstream environmental concerns in all development activities. The NEP 2004 briefly describes the key environmental challenges currently and prospectively facing the country, the objectives of environment policy, normative principles underlying policy action, strategic themes for intervention, broad indications of the legislative and institutional development intended to accomplish the strategic themes, and mechanisms for implementation and review. The NEP 2004 is intended to be a guide to action for achieving a balance between economic, social and environmental needs of the country aimed at the dominant imperative of alleviation of mass poverty.
The draft Policy points out that the key environmental challenges that the country faces relate to the nexus of environmental degradation with poverty in its many dimensions, and economic growth. These challenges are intrinsically connected with the state of environmental resources, such as land, water, air and their flora and fauna. Another major set of challenges arises from emerging global environmental concerns such as climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion, and biodiversity loss.
The draft Policy seeks to achieve the objectives of conservation of critical environmental resources, intra-generational as well as inter-generational equity, livelihood security for the poor, integration of environmental concerns in economic and social development, efficiency in environmental resource use, environmental governance and enhancement of resources for environmental conservation.
While achieving these objectives, the activities of different actors in relation to this policy will be guided by the following principles: human beings are at the center of sustainable development concerns; the right to development; environmental protection is an integral part of the development process; the precautionary approach; and economic efficiency.
Stating that the regulatory regimes for environmental conservation comprises a legislative framework, and a set of regulatory institutions, draft NEP observes that inadequacies in each have resulted in accelerated environmental degradation on the one hand, and long delays and high transactions costs in development projects on the other. The Policy therefore calls for identifying emerging areas for new legislative framework, reviewing the body of existing legislation in order to develop synergies among relevant statutes and regulations, and ensuring accountability of the concerned levels of Government in undertaking the necessary legislative changes in a defined time-frame.
Further stating that the existing procedures for granting clearances and other approvals under various statutes and rules will be reviewed to bring in process related reforms, the draft Policy points out that its objective is to reduce delays and levels of decision-making, realize decentralization of environmental functions, and ensure greater transparency and accountability and calls for employing a judicious mix of civil and criminal processes and sanctions in legal regime for enforcement, through a review of the existing legislation.
In order to make the environment and forests clearance processes more effective, draft NEP seeks to encourage regulatory authorities, Central and State, to institutionalize regional and cumulative environmental impact assessments to ensure that environmental concerns are identified and addressed at the planning stage itself. It further seeks to lay down that no further regularization of encroachment on forests should be permitted.
The draft Policy recommends revisiting the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) notifications to make the approach to coastal environmental regulation more holistic and thereby ensuring protection to coastal ecological systems, coastal waters and the vulnerability of some coastal areas to potential sea level rise.
The draft Policy calls for reviewing the regulatory processes for Living Modified Organisms (LMOs) so that all relevant scientific knowledge is taken into account and ecological health and economic concerns are adequately addressed. It further calls for identifying and giving legal status to Environmentally Sensitive Zones in the country with environmental entities with "Incomparable values" requiring special conservation efforts.
Another substantive reform that the Policy proposes to bring about is the use of economic principles in environmental decision-making. It recommends that the costs associated with the degradation and depletion of natural resources be incorporated into the decisions of economic actors at various levels to reverse the tendency to treat these resources as "free goods" and to pass the costs of degradation to other sections of society, or to future generations of the country. The draft NEP further calls for developing and promoting the use of standardized environmental accounting practices and standards in preparation of statutory financial statements for large industrial enterprises, in order to encourage greater environmental responsibility in investment decision-making, management practices, and public scrutiny.
The draft Policy stresses that the relevant fiscal, tariffs, and sectoral policies take explicit account of their unintentional impacts on land degradation, if the fundamental basis of livelihoods for the vast majority of our people is not to be irreparably damaged.
The draft NEP further calls for giving legal recognition to the traditional rights of forest dwelling tribes and for formulating an innovative strategy for increase of forest and tree cover from the present level of 23 percent of the country’s land area, to 33 percent in 2012, through afforestation of degraded forest land, wastelands, and tree cover on private or revenue land. It says that for wildlife conservation, the Protected Area network of the country, including Conservation and Community Reserves, should be expanded to give fair representation to all bio-geographic zones of the country.
Stating that the protection of areas of high endemism of genetic resources ("biodiversity hot spots") should be strengthened, while providing alternative livelihoods and access to resources to local communities who may be affected thereby, the draft Policy calls for enhancing ex-situ conservation of genetic resources in designated gene banks across the country and for formulating and adopting an internationally recognized system of legally enforceable sui-generis intellectual property rights for the country’s genetic resources and ethno-biology knowledge to enable the country to derive economic benefits from grant of access to these resources.
So far as freshwater resources are concerned, draft NEP calls for ensuring maintenance of adequate water flows and adherence to water quality standards throughout the course of rivers in all seasons. It further calls for taking explicit account of impacts on groundwater tables of electricity tariffs and pricing of diesel. For the wetlands, it recommends setting up a legally enforceable regulatory mechanism for identified valuable wetlands to prevent their degradation and enhance their conservation.
For pollution abatement, the draft Policy says that indoor air pollution arises from the low societal status of women, leading to continued use of polluting, inefficient biomass stoves, besides pricing policies for agricultural chemicals which lead to substitution of biomass based fertilizer by chemicals, the biomass then being used inefficiently as fuel. It calls for formulating a national strategy for urban transport to ensure adequate investment, public and private, in low-pollution mass transport systems. To check water pollution, draft NEP calls for developing and implementing public-private partnership models for setting up and operating effluent and sewage treatment plants.
To tackle soil pollution, the draft Policy calls for developing and implementing viable models of public-private partnerships for setting up and operating secure landfills and incinerators for toxic and hazardous waste, both industrial and biomedical, on payment by users, taking the concerns of local communities into account. For noise pollution, it recommends formulation of noise emissions norms (e.g. loudspeaker, automobile horns, fireworks ratings) appropriate to various activities to ensure that exposure levels to third parties who are not participants in the activity do not exceed prescribed ambient standards.
Stating that heritage sites, several of them may be held to possess "Incomparable Values", may be impacted by pollution, or they may face threats of inundation or conversion by development projects, the draft Policy says that heritage sites considered to have "Incomparable Values" would merit stricter standards than otherwise comparable situations, and particular attention should be paid to monitoring and enforcement of environmental standards in their case. Impacts on designated heritage sites must be considered at the stage of developing the terms of reference for environmental impact assessments of projects, it adds.
Observing that Environmental Management Systems (EMS), such as ISO 14000, by requiring the adoption of standardized environmental management practices, documenting their actual use, and third party verification of the fact, may significantly ease the public burden of monitoring and enforcement of prescribed emissions standards, the draft Policy calls for encouraging industry associations to promote the adoption of ISO 14000 among their members and for formulating "Good Practice Guidelines" for ecolabels to enhance their scientific basis, transparency, and requirements of participation.
The Minister of Environment and Forests, Thiru. A. Raja, had stated on the day he assumed charge of the Ministry that he would give topmost priority to the formulation of National Environment policy (NEP). He further added that extensive discussions and feedback sessions with various stakeholder groups would be held before finalization of the National Environment Policy.
The full text of the Draft National Environment Policy can be accessed on http://envfor.nic.in/nep.htm. The Draft National Environment Policy will be discussed in the forthcoming meeting of State Environment Ministers and Secretaries scheduled for 8th – 9th September 2004.