The environment ministry has been quietly implementing controversial recommendations made by two government-appointed committees, prompting accusations from activists that it is introducing reforms by stealth.

Officially, the T.S.R. Subramanian committee report to overhaul India’s environmental laws is on the back burner, but the environment ministry has been simplifying green laws in individual cases, in line with the recommendations of the report.

That is also the case with the Shailesh Nayak committee report, which was submitted to the ministry in January 2015 and recommends a complete overhaul of the rules related to the development of coastal areas. Even though the ministry is yet to accept or reject the report, it has, in the past 16 months, made at least eight changes to the coastal regulation zone rules, drawing heavily from the report’s recommendations.

The trend has not gone down well with environmentalists.

Soon after assuming charge in May 2014, then environment minister Prakash Javadekar formed a high-level committee under former cabinet secretary T.S.R. Subramanian to review and suggest amendments to India’s major green laws—the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986; Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980; Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972; Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974; Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981; and the Indian Forest Act 1927—in order to bring them in line with current requirements.

The Subramanian committee submitted its report in November 2014, suggesting, among other things, a major overhaul of India’s environmental sector, with a special emphasis on simplifying procedures, monitoring green clearances and creating a new law for penalizing those violating environmental laws.

However, Javadekar faced a serious backlash from environmentalists and activists, who accused the expert committee of doing a hurried job. Following strong opposition, the ministry assured activists that it would not implement the recommendations of the report without proper consultation.

Lawmakers, too, objected to the report. A parliamentary standing committee remarked in July 2015 that the period of “three months allotted to the HLC (high-level committee) for reviewing the six environmental Acts was too short and that there was no cogent reason for hurrying through with the report without comprehensive, meaningful and wider consultations with all stakeholders".

The panel, led by Congress MP Ashwani Kumar, asked the environment ministry to appoint a new committee to review environmental laws. Since then, the ministry has neither accepted nor rejected the report. But activists point out that it has actually gone ahead with some of the recommended changes, rather than looking at the environment in a holistic manner.

For instance, the TSR panel recommended allowing cultural practices such as jallikattu (involving bulls) and worship of snakes, “taking into account the needs of local festivals, subject to no harm or injury to animals". Animal welfare activists want a ban on jallikattu on the grounds of cruelty to animals.

In July 2016, Mint reported that the environment ministry had come up with a plan to amend the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, to allow such cultural practices. The draft amendment was sent to the law and justice ministry, which has given its approval.

The ministry has been similarly ambivalent about the expert panel that looked into the rules for coastal regulation zones, or CRZs. In June 2014, the ministry constituted the committee under Shailesh Nayak, then secretary in the ministry of earth sciences, to look into issues raised by various coastal states regarding CRZ regulations. In January 2015, the panel submitted a 110-page report on regulations notified in 2011.

Enviromentalists fear that if the Nayak report is accepted in full, it can trigger a boom in real estate, ports and tourism development in ecologically sensitive coastal zones.

Environment minister, Anil Madhav Dave, who took over last month, said the ministry is studying the reports: “Reports are there. We are observing, we are studying. CRZ is a great concern to us. We are looking into it. We want to study them properly. We don’t want to take any steps (in a hurry) that the next generation questions us... What I can say is that CRZ has a deep connection with the conservation process and development. And how we do it, in a manner that addresses both the issues, is something we are looking at."

Environmentalists accuse the ministry of lack of transparency.

“The entire process of preparing the TSR report was marred by controversy. The environment ministry, without formally revealing its position, is just picking and choosing issues without discussing the entire report. This is exactly what they did with the expert committee report on coastal regulations where they kept their view on the report pending while making several changes in coastal rules," said Kanchi Kohli, legal research director at the Namati Environmental Justice Programme of the Centre for Policy Research, a Delhi-based think tank.

“There has not been any consideration to even the parliamentary standing committee’s opinion which opposed the TSR report. The ministry cannot ignore all the concerns that have been raised," Kohli added.

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