GUWAHATI, Oct 8: The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has reappointed retired IFS officer Jatindra Sarma as chairman of the State Level Expert Appraisal Committee (SEAC) for a second term and reconstituted the State Level Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA) for Assam with Shyamanta Bezbarua as its chairman.
The gazette notification was published on October 6 under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, in line with the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification, 2006. Both bodies will have a four-year tenure from the date of publication of the notification.
Sarma, a former Chief Conservator of Forests and Field Director of Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve, will head the eight-member SEAC.
A retired IFS officer, Sarma has been working on exploring plants and mushrooms in the wild and studying their medicinal value and properties. He recently published a two-volume book titled Medicinal Plants and Mushrooms of India. He has also served as Chief Conservator of Forests.
The other SEAC members are Prof Parthankar Choudhury, Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Assam University, Silchar; Dr Rahul Mahanta, Associate Professor of Physics, Cotton University; Dr Arup Barpujary, environmentalist; Dr Arup Kumar Sarma, Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Guwahati; Dr Bhagawat Pran Duarah, Professor, Department of Geological Sciences, Gauhati University; and Dr Narayan Sharma, Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental Biology and Wildlife Sciences, Cotton University.
The Member Secretary, Assam Pollution Control Board, will serve as Member Secretary of the committee.The SEAC will function on the principle of collective responsibility. The chairman will seek consensus in each case, and where consensus cannot be reached, the majority view will prevail.
Bezbarua, a retired Assam government official and former Secretary of the Public Works Department (Building and National Highway), will head the reconstituted SEIAA.Retired Gauhati University Botany professor Dr Socindra Kumar Borthakur has been appointed a member of the authority, while the Secretary of the Assam Environment, Forest and Climate Change Department will be the Member Secretary.
The SEIAA is responsible for deciding environmental clearance proposals based on SEAC recommendations. Under the EIA framework, Category B projects are appraised at the state level by the SEAC and SEIAA, while Category A projects are dealt with at the central level.
The SEAC undertakes technical appraisal of projects and makes recommendations, while the SEIAA takes the final decision on environmental clearance proposals within its jurisdiction.
The notification states that the Assam SEIAA will base its decisions on SEAC recommendations. Decisions are to be taken in meetings and, ordinarily, unanimously. If a decision is taken by majority, the differing views must be recorded in the minutes and a copy sent to the MoEFCC.
The reconstitution comes as Assam is witnessing a push for infrastructure, construction and other development projects, putting the functioning of the two panels under focus in the state’s environmental clearance process.
The notification also lays down conflict-of-interest provisions for members of both bodies. Members must disclose their association with consulting organisations and project proponents and cannot undertake consultancy or assist in preparing environmental impact assessments or environmental management plans for projects to be decided by the SEIAA or appraised by the SEAC during their tenure.
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