Public Hearing Process in India
Public hearing has been recognized as an essential element in the Environment Impact Assessment procedure. In 1997, the EIA notification was amended to make public hearing for development projects mandatory.
Importance of Public Hearing in EIA Process
Involving public is one of the basic principles of a successful EIA process. Public hearing provides an opportunity to the directly affected people to express their concerns and brings transparency in the environmental clearance system.
We note here that public involvement is a part of almost all EIA processes around the world. Public involvement is via two ways. First is public consultation in which concerns of the local people regarding the adverse impacts of a project are defined and taken into account in the EIA study. Second is public participation, which is more interactive and intensive kind of public involvement.
The difference between public consultation and public participation is that while former is a passive process of asking the public about their concerns in writing, later is more intensive and involved active participation of public. In other words, public consultation is generally done in “listening mode” while public participation goes a step ahead and takes into account the dialogue, scrutiny, consideration, response etc.
Process of Public Hearing
In our country, public involvement was introduced in 1997 in the form of public hearing. However, even today, the role of public is very limited in India.
The process begins when SPCB issues notice in at least two newspapers circulated in the region. One of these newspapers must be in local language. This notice mentioned the date, time and place of public hearing. The public can hand over the written suggestions, views, comments and objections to SPCB within 30 days of releasing such notice. The public is entitled to have access to the executive summary containing salient features of project both in local language and English. They also have access to the EIA report which can be obtained from office of district collector or zilla parishad or SPCB office or other departments dealing with the project.
The SPCB forms a public hearing panel that has representative from SPCB, district collector or his / her nominee, representatives of state government dealing with the project, maximum 3 representatives of the local Panchayat / municipality and maximum 3 senior citizens nominated by district collector.
Once public hearing is over, the project developer will get a NOC from SPCB and submit application to the MoEF secretary to get environmental clearance.
Projects exempted from public hearing
- Small scale industrial undertakings located in
- Notified or designed industrial areas/ industrial estates.
- Areas marked for industries under the jurisdiction of industrial development authorities.
- Widening and strengthening of highways
- Mining projects (major minerals) with lease areas upto 25 hectares
- Units located in export processing zones and special economic zones and
- Modernization of existing irrigation projects. MoEF is the nodal agency for environmental clearance.
