[Answered] What are main principles of Environment Impact Assessment? Discuss the significance of Environment Impact assessment in various development projects.

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is one of the tools available with the planners to achieve the goal of harmonising development activities with the environmental concerns. EIA in India is statutorily backed by the Environment Protection Act 1986, which contains the provisions on EIA procedures.

Main Principles of Environment Impact Assessment (EIA):

There are eight guiding principles that govern the entire EIA process: The principles of EIA:

1. Participation: The process should provide appropriate opportunities to inform and involve the interested and affected publics, and their inputs and concerns should be addressed explicitly in the documentation and decision making. Appropriate/timely access for interested parties is important.
2. Transparency: The process should have clear, easily understood requirements for EIA content, ensure public access to the information, identify the factors that are taken into account in decision making and acknowledge limitations and difficulties. Open and accessible assessment decisions are important in EIA.
3. Efficient: The Process should impose the minimum cost burdens in terms of time and finance on proponents and participants consistent with meeting accepted requirements and objectives of EIA.
4. Accountability: The decision maker should inform decision making and result in appropriate levels of environmental protection and community well-being. Decision makers should be responsible for their actions and decisions.
5. Credibility: The process should be carried out with professionalism, rigour, fairness, objectivity, impartiality and balance and be subject to independent checks and verification.
6. Cost-effective: The process should achieve the objectives of EIA within the limits of available information, time, resources and methodology.
7. Integrated: The process should address the interrelationships of social, economic and biophysical aspects.
8. Practicality: The process should result in information and outputs which assist with problem solving and are acceptable to and able to be implemented by proponents. Information/outputs readily usable in decision making and planning is important.

Significance of EIA in various projects:

1. EIA is Important to ensure peaceful operations and conflict management in many projects.
2. Environmental impact assessment is not a procedure for preventing actions with significant environmental impacts from being implemented. Rather the intention is that project actions are authorised in the full knowledge of their environmental impacts.
3. EIA is more than technical reports, it is a means to a larger intention, the protection and improvement of the environmental quality of life.
4. EIA is a procedure to identify and evaluate the effects of activities (mainly human) on the environment- natural and social. It is not a single specific analytical method or technique, but uses many approaches as appropriate to the problem.
5. EIA is not a science but uses many sciences in an integrated inter-disciplinary manner, evaluating phenomenon and relationships as they occur in the real world.
6. EIA should not be treated as an appendage, or add-on, to a project, but be regarded as an integral part of project planning. Its costs should be calculated as an adequate part of planning and not regarded as something extra.
7. EIA does not give decisions but its findings should be considered in policy- and decision-making and should be reflected in final choices. Thus it should be part of the decision-making process.
8. The findings of EIA should be focused on the significant and essential issues. It is also required to provide a sufficient explanation on why they are important, and study its validity in order to facilitate a basis for policy decisions.
9. Government has time and again appointed committees to look into environmental protection. Example- Gadgil and Kasturirangan Committees on Western Ghats ecology.

There is a need to strengthen the implementation of EIA, Independent EIA Authority is required for fair and objective decisions. There is also a need for centralised data bank for storing information and the transparency must be maintained in dissemination of all information related to projects from notification to clearance to local communities and general public.