No to DGH presence, says EAC
In a rare show of defiance, the environment ministry’s Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) rejected an inter-ministerial committee’s request to include a DGH member at last month's two-day EAC meeting (April 23 and 24).
After its meeting on April 1 (2024), the interministerial committee made the request to speed up the clearance of a delayed Rs120cr ($14.4m) three-well development drilling programme and the setting up of associated facilities at the tiny 8.91-sq km Duarmara (AA/ONDSF/Duarmara/2016) field in Assam where Mumbai-based Oilmax Energy and Gurgaon-based Antelopus Energy are joint operators. Chaired by the environment secretary Leena Nandan, the inter-ministerial committee meeting was called to address pending proposals and policy issues related to forest, environment, wildlife and Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) clearances.
"The EAC was requested to include a member from the DGH in the (Duarmara) proposal," says an EAC note "However, the EAC has not accepted the request. " Some say that’s because EAC head Satish Chander Mann does not take kindly to being told what to do.
"He is a former member-secretary of the Haryana State Pollution Control Board (HPCB)," says an environment ministry source. "And a no-nonsense official."
Besides Mann who chaired the April 23-24 meeting, other members present were Dr JS Sharma, former head of environment at ONGC; Dr YV Rami Reddy, professor of chemistry from SV University in Andhra Pradesh; Dr Onkarnath Tiwari, former ED at state-owned Hindustan Copper; JS Kamyotra, former director of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB); Dr Rahul Mungikar, a conservation biologist from Pune; Dr Sanjay Patil, technical advisor and head of the department of technology and biofuels at the Pune-based Vasantdada Sugar Institute; Dr Siddhartha Singh, a scientist from the India Meteorological Department; and Dr Vimal Kumar Hatwal, an environmental scientist from the environment ministry.