Stage Three: Public Consultation and the Public Hearing

In one line

The only stage at which anyone outside the process has a voice is a hearing presided over by the District Magistrate or an officer the District Magistrate authorises, video-recorded, with no quorum, in which every person present may ask a question.

In the wording a student can write in an examination: stage 3 of paragraph 7(i) of the Environmental Impact Assessment Notification 2006 defines public consultation as the process by which the concerns of local affected persons and others who have a plausible stake in the environmental impacts of the project are ascertained with a view to taking into account all material concerns in the project design; all Category A and Category B1 projects shall undertake public consultation except those listed; the consultation ordinarily has two components, a public hearing at or near the site district-wise conducted in the manner prescribed in Appendix IV, and responses in writing from other concerned persons; and after the consultation the applicant shall address all the material environmental concerns expressed and make appropriate changes in the draft assessment report and environmental management plan.

The two components

One, the public hearing. At the site or in its close proximity, district-wise, in the manner prescribed in Appendix IV, for ascertaining the concerns of local affected persons.

Two, written responses. From other concerned persons having a plausible stake in the environmental aspects of the project.

The distinction is deliberate. The hearing is for the people who live there; the written route is for anybody else with a plausible stake, which is wide enough to include a scientist, an organisation or a person downstream in another district.

Who conducts the hearing, and what happens if they do not

Who. The State Pollution Control Board or the Union territory Pollution Control Committee, in the specified manner, which must forward the proceedings to the regulatory authority within forty-five days of a request from the applicant.

If the Board does not. The regulatory authority shall engage another public agency or authority which is not subordinate to the regulatory authority to complete the process within a further period of forty-five days.

If a hearing cannot be held at all. If the agency reports that, owing to the local situation, it is not possible to conduct the public hearing in a manner which will enable the views of the concerned local persons to be freely expressed, it reports the facts in detail, and the regulatory authority may then decide that the public consultation need not include the public hearing.

That last provision is the most criticised sentence in the whole notification, and it should be stated exactly and then criticised precisely. Its purpose is real: a hearing that cannot be held safely or freely is worse than none, and the alternative would be a sham. Its risk is equally real: local opposition strong enough to make a hearing difficult is the reason the hearing is dispensed with, and the requirement of a detailed report is the only check.