The Environmental Impact Assessment Notification 2006

In one line

The instrument that decides whether a project may be built is not an Act at all; it is a notification of 2006 issued under the Environment (Protection) Act 1986.

In exam wording: the Environmental Impact Assessment Notification 2006, S.O. 1533(E) of 14 September 2006, was issued under sub-rule (3) of rule 5 of the Environment (Protection) Rules 1986 read with clause (v) of sub-rule (3) of rule 5 and with sections 3(1) and 3(2)(v) of the Environment (Protection) Act 1986, in supersession of the notification of 27 January 1994; it requires prior environmental clearance for the projects and activities in its Schedule; paragraph 4 divides them into Category A, decided by the Central Government in the Ministry on the recommendations of an Expert Appraisal Committee, and Category B, decided by the State or Union territory Environment Impact Assessment Authority on the recommendations of a State level Expert Appraisal Committee, with a Category B project treated as Category A where no State Authority or Committee is duly constituted; and paragraph 7 sets four stages, screening for Category B, scoping, public consultation and appraisal.

MU's own phrase. She writes it as the Environment Impact Assessment Notification. The instrument's own title is the Environmental Impact Assessment Notification 2006, and both refer to the same notification.

Why it is a notification

Section 3(1) of the Environment (Protection) Act 1986 empowers the Central Government to take all such measures as it deems necessary or expedient for protecting and improving the quality of the environment and preventing, controlling and abating environmental pollution.

Section 3(2)(v) particularises that power to include the restriction of areas in which any industries, operations or processes or class of them shall not be carried out or shall be carried out subject to certain safeguards.

Rule 5 of the Environment (Protection) Rules 1986 governs how that restriction is imposed, including the requirement of notice and consideration of objections.

That is the whole legal basis. A student who looks in the Act for the environmental clearance procedure will not find it, and a student who cites section 3 alone has cited the power rather than the instrument.

The two categories

Paragraph 4(i). All projects and activities are broadly categorised into Category A and Category B, based on the spatial extent of potential impacts and the potential impacts on human health and natural and man-made resources.

Paragraph 4(ii). All projects or activities included as Category A in the Schedule, including expansion and modernisation of existing projects and change in product mix, require prior environmental clearance from the Central Government in the Ministry, on the recommendations of an Expert Appraisal Committee constituted by the Central Government for the purposes of the notification.