Corrigendum to earlier blogpost titled "When Economic interests override Environmental Concerns"

The title “When economic interests override environmental concerns” in one of my blog posts is an objective claim referring to the exclusive issue of demanding a social impact assessment for the Chennai-Salem Corridor at a stage when the original project had been commissioned and was clearly underway. My title presumably does not endorse the view that environmental norms need to be diluted to attract investments.   In retrospect, I am now convinced that the apt title for the blogpost would have been “When political interests override environmental concerns”. The title and the blog post express the futility in reopening environmental and social assessment of a project, that has changed its targets and direction midway to suit political and vested interests. The phrase. ‘Economic interests” specifically refers to those investors who have been awarded contracts in the Bharatmala project and any reopening of assessments could lead to stoppage of work merely because a major route within the state of Tamil Nadu has been changed to suit political purposes.  Essentially, strategic environmental assessment needs to be completed before commission of the projects and contracts have been awarded. It would be legally incorrect to subject the original project whose EIA is completed, at least on paper, to large scale changes that can affect a different region that has not been assessed for environmental and social impacts in the original EIA report.

 

The blog post merely espouses the case of those investors who may face financial constraints if the contracts have been stalled for reasons that are political. It further believes the best option available to all stakeholders would be to proceed with the implementation of original project where environmental impact assessment and social impact assessment have been completed.  Yet, as on date, from details available on the internet, it appears that contracts have been awarded for only 27% of the project and the rest have been delayed for several reasons including COVID-19.

 

Despite all good intentions, the pandemic has brought to standstill many a project including large scale infrastructure projects. In the interregnum, it may be time to review the project and the EIA reports prepared in relation to the entire Bharatmala project with an inquiry into the shelving of Chennai-Madurai Economic Corridor and if the project is to be recommenced post-pandemic, it must follow the original project plan of creating the Chennai-Madurai Economic Corridor, instead of the Chennai-Salem Highway. In any case, acquisition of land for such large-scale infrastructure projects should follow after an extensive EIA report has been prepared since the report shall list out if any agricultural lands are being acquired for the purpose and if any ecologically sensitive areas are being threatened. Further, the EIA report needs to list out any mitigation and adaptation plans are in place subsequent to such acquisition. Acquisition of any land for such large-scale infrastructure projects should be within norms listed for land-use change and if such changes can be justified with a cost-benefit analysis.