Environment ministry’s ‘public’ meeting on waste management rules raises a stink
BENGALURU: The Union Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) was forced to call off its public consultation meeting, held at a five star hotel in the city on Friday, as it failed to answer questions raised by various representatives of civil society organisations. The public consultation, ‘Stakeholders Consultation on Draft Waste Management Rules 2015’, was organised in partnership with Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in Bengaluru.
However, minutes after CII Chairman Shekar Viswanathan welcomed the delegates, including MoEF&CC joint secretary Biswanath Sinha and KSPCB Chairman Dr Vaman Acharya, on the dais, the Ministry decided to cancel the Bengaluru meeting, after civil society activists raised various objections regarding the way it was being conducted. Soon after the inaugural, Leo Saldhana of Environment Support Group pointed out that the Ministry had wrongly, perhaps even illegally, outsourced an essential executive function of rule formulation to a corporate lobby group, which is not only illegal but also unconstitutional.
According to him, in April, the Ministry had put out the Draft Municipal Solid Waste Management Rules, 2015, for public comments and said it was undertaking a national consultation programme for the same. Subsequently, the meetings were to be held in Delhi on May 1, Mumbai on May 8, Bengaluru on May 22 and Kolkata on June 5. However, the Ministry did not issue any advertisements inviting the public to engage in the consultations.
“Instead,” he said, “Email invitations were sent out and participation was restricted to invitees with prior registrations. The invitation exercise was undertaken with such secrecy that not even the Solid Waste Management Expert Committee members (constituted by the BBMP) were invited,” he said. Since there were no public advertisements, there was no way public or any elected representative from any of the four southern states could participate, he asserted.
Raising objections to the CII organising the event in Bengaluru, Saldanha said, “Nowhere in the Constitution or the Environment Protection Act is there a mention of CII as a statutory authority to hold national consultations on rule formulation.” Bhargavi S. Rao of Environment Support Group said that CII officials resisted her entry into the forum even after she had informed that she would be participating as a petitioner on the waste management case before the Karnataka High Court.
Another PIL petitioner and member of Ramagondanahalli Panchayat, Ramesh, asked Mr. Sinha if he even appreciated how insensitive the Ministry was to their realities. He said his community suffered due to the impacts of municipal and hazardous waste dumping, and instead of ensuring that such communities were consulted, the Ministry had trusted CII which worked for companies that damage public health by their pollution.
The representatives alleged that in Delhi too the event, which was presided over by Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar, the CII and FICCI selectively invited industry representatives or pro-industry lobby groups for consultation. In an attempt to justify the move, Mr Sinha said this was the first of a series of meetings and later consultations would be held with civil society groups. But none of this convinced the audience, who demanded that consultations be held by the Ministry or by any neutral government body, such as the KSPCB or the Environment department.
When the Ministry could not convince the attendees, Mr Sinha declared that the national consultation in Bengaluru has been called off. The representatives demanded that these consultations must be held in a public venue (not a 5-star hotel), with sufficient advance notice by through advertisements, without any deterrent to public participation, and in a transparent and accountable manner.
