The ministry said instances have been brought to their notice wherein the “EIA reports prepared by the environmental consultants contain information or data copied from other reports”.
In a stern warning to ‘plagiarists’, the Union Environment Ministry on Wednesday said if they find Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) reports submitted to them copied from others, the environmental clearance for the concerned projects would be withdrawn and they will have to start the process from scratch.
The ministry said instances have been brought to their notice wherein the “EIA reports prepared by the environmental consultants contain information or data copied from other reports”.
It said due to this they have decided that “project proponent (companies or enterprises) shall submit an undertaking as part of the EIA report, owning the contents (information and data) of the EIA report.”
“If at any stage, it is observed or brought to the notice of the ministry that the contents of the EIA report pertaining to a project have been copied from other reports, such projects shall be summarily rejected and the proponent will have to initiate the process afresh including conduct of public hearing,” said the ministry in its latest order.
But in cases wherein decision has already been taken and environment clearance granted based on copied EIA report, the ministry said, “environment clearance granted would be withdrawn and the procedure for obtaining environmental clearance will be initiated de-novo.”
It warned that they would start separate action to ‘de-list such consultants’ from the list of accredited consultants.
The ministry said, “onus of providing correct and factual information in EIA report lies with the project proponent” as it may be ‘time consuming’ for the ministry and the Expert Appraisal Committees (EACs) to compare the contents of one report with the other to check for copied data.”
As per the procedure, EIA report about a project and details of public hearing (conducted in the concerned area) are submitted to the EAC which then grants environmental clearance.
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