Environmental Management and Monitoring of Environmental Safeguards in Indian River Valley Projects

摘要

Many hydro-electric and multi-purpose river valley projects have suffered large time and cost overruns, either due to environmental activism or inadequate care in implementing the stipulated environmental safeguards. The Environmental Monitoring Committees (EMCs) for river valley projects have been constituted at the instance of the Ministry of Water Resources as multi-disciplinary groups having representation of various ministries and expert agencies, at national, state and project levels. This article presents the mechanism and institutional aspects of assessment, appraisal and monitoring of environmental impacts of river valley projects in India. The need of construction of large dams in India has also been briefly reviewed in the paper.