Corporate interests vs public good. When environmental clearances become a license for corruption

By Raj Kumar Sinha* 

The controversy over the functioning of the Madhya Pradesh State Environmental Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA) has now reached the Supreme Court. In May 2025, SEIAA approved as many as 450 projects in a single day—without convening the mandatory collective meeting required under law. Files were deliberately kept pending, and once deadlines lapsed, approvals were deemed to have been granted automatically, a direct violation of the rules.

Of these projects, more than 200 were linked to the mining sector, raising serious suspicions of corruption. According to the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification of 2006, approvals must come only after collective deliberations by the authority. But in this case, technical evaluations and public hearings were ignored, and in several cases even the mineral quantities or names were altered to give illegal activities a legal façade. Allegations suggest the entire process was meant to benefit the mining mafia and their brokers.

It is further alleged that senior officials interfered in the approval process, undermining the autonomy of SEIAA. Even in other projects, controversy arose: though approvals were shown as “consensual,” the Member Secretary objected, declaring them invalid. Between March 28 and April 21, 2025, no SEIAA meeting was held and hundreds of files remained pending. When three meetings were finally held in April–May, most approvals were still signed off unilaterally by the Member Secretary.

SEIAA Chairman Shivanarayan Singh Chauhan exposed these irregular clearances. He repeatedly called for meetings, but received no response. He wrote to the Chief Minister and the Union Ministry of Environment, terming the approvals illegal and even demanded FIRs. Chauhan petitioned the Supreme Court, alleging that 237 projects had been cleared without proper evaluation. He accused Member Secretary Uma Maheshwar and Principal Secretary of the Environment Department, Navneet Kothari, of deliberately delaying meetings to benefit the mining lobby, and of bypassing mandatory processes to issue unauthorized clearances.

On July 24, 2025, the Supreme Court issued notices to the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and to the Chief and Principal Secretaries of Madhya Pradesh regarding these 237 illegal approvals. The Court questioned how approvals could be granted without any meeting of SEIAA and demanded responses within two weeks. In the most recent hearing, the Court treated the matter as extremely serious, remarking that if IAS officers themselves start issuing environmental clearances, then the very purpose of SEIAA as an independent authority becomes meaningless.

Why SEIAA Exists

The Madhya Pradesh SEIAA was established under the Environmental Impact Assessment Notification of 2006, framed under the Environment Protection Act of 1986. The notification requires prior environmental clearance for certain categories of new projects and expansions. Projects under Category A require approval from the Union Ministry, while those under Category B fall under the jurisdiction of SEIAA, which is supported by a State Expert Appraisal Committee (SEAC).

This framework was meant to ensure that projects undergo environmental appraisal, including public hearings, before being cleared. The original notification of 1994 had made environmental clearance mandatory for 32 categories of industrial and infrastructure projects, ranging from dams and mines to refineries and power plants. The process mandated Environmental Impact Assessment reports in both English and local languages, made available to district authorities and communities, with public hearings as a crucial step to incorporate the voices of those directly affected.

The intention was clear: projects should not only be evaluated scientifically, but the affected communities should also have a decisive say in whether they should proceed.

Over the years, however, successive amendments—13 between 1994 and 2006—diluted the process. The 2006 notification, backed by a World Bank–linked “Environmental Management Capacity Building Programme,” simplified clearances in the name of efficiency, but monitoring of conditions remained weak. Though six-monthly compliance reports were mandated, oversight has been minimal, and even today, public hearings are often reduced to token exercises.

On Paper, a Rigorous Process. In Practice, a Mere Formailty

In theory, environmental clearance is about assessing the damage a project—industrial, mining, power, dam, or infrastructure—may cause, and attaching conditions to mitigate it. In practice, however, the process appears tilted more towards corporate interests than public good. The law mandates public hearings, but on the ground, villagers, tribals, and other stakeholders often find their views altered in records, or are pressured into showing support.

EIA reports, usually prepared by consultants hired by project sponsors, are often copy-paste jobs, incomplete, or riddled with false data, ignoring rivers, forests, groundwater, or pollution risks. Many times, figures are deliberately tweaked to understate environmental damage. Once approvals are granted, promises of safeguards—such as tree planting, dust suppression, or river protection—are rarely monitored.

The Madhya Pradesh case illustrates how an institution meant to protect the environment can be hollowed out from within. What was envisioned as a safeguard against reckless industrialisation has, in practice, been reduced to paperwork serving corporate lobbies. Unless the Supreme Court intervention leads to structural reforms, environmental clearance risks remaining not a safeguard but a formality.

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*Bargi Dam Displaced and Affected People’s Association