PANJIM: The Supreme Court, in Para 86 of the its Odisha judgement has referred to and drawn attention to an EIA notification of January 27, 1994, with regard to (i) expansion or modernisation of any activity (if pollution load is to exceed the existing one) and (ii) a new project listed in Schedule I to the notification, which shall not be undertaken unless it has been accorded environmental clearance (EC) by the Central Government in accordance with the procedure specified.
The notification provides, among other things, that in case of mining operations, site clearance shall be granted for a sanctioned capacity and shall be valid ONLY for a period of five years from commencing mining operations.
What this means is that on receipt of an EC a mining lease holder can extract a mineral only from a specified site, up to the sanctioned capacity and only for a period of five years from the date of the grant of an EC. This is regardless of the quantum of extraction permissible in the mining plan or the mining lease and regardless of the duration of the mining lease.
Consequently, a mining lease holder would necessarily have to obtain a fresh EC every five years and can also apply for an increase in the sanctioned capacity. There is no concept of a retrospective EC and its validity effectively starts only from the day it is granted. Thus, the EC takes precedence over the mining lease or to put it conversely, the mining operations under a mining lease are dependent on and ‘subordinate’ to the EC.
On 4th May, 1994 an Explanatory Note was added to EIA 1994. Note 8 of this explanatory note specifically clarified that in case of existing projects those mining projects that have a no objection certificate from the state pollution control board before 27th January, 1994 will not be required to obtain an EC from the Impact Assessment Agency. Those without NOCs for all projects post Jan 27, 1994, will need fresh ECs.
