Notification of statutory green bodies delayed

SHILLONG, April 22: The government has not notified the State Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA) and State Expert Appraisal Committee (SEAC) even after the expiry of the term of the previous bodies in the last week of November 2021.
According to the EIA Notification, 2006, all states and UTs are required to have in place the mandatory SEIAA and SEAC, both of which are notified by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forest.
The SEIAA, comprising senior retired bureaucrats or technocrats, grants environment clearance based on recommendations of the SEAC that comprises qualified and experienced sector experts.
Both the bodies have a fixed three-year term, which for the previous bodies expired in November last year.
Such delay is rare as the ministry has reduced the time for the grant of environmental clearance to the applicants. It is all the more intriguing as more than five months of delay is creating problems for small mining entrepreneurs whose cases are handled at the state level.
The state environment and forest department had endorsed the names of the resource persons for both the regulatory bodies via a letter dated November 24, 2021, addressed to the director of the environment division of the ministry followed by another letter on January 10 this year on the ministry’s request.
No information has been received by the state thereafter.
A powerful mining lobby in the state or certain officials in the environment division is suspected to be delaying the notification to avoid the regulatory mechanism by both statutory bodies as long as they can.