Haryana CM lobbied to get violators off the hook

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Editor's note: Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar lobbied environment minister Prakash Javadekar in March this year to quickly grant environment clearances to 15 companies which violated the environment clearance law and were, at the time, legally not eligible to receive clearance, official documents accessed exclusively by The Morning Context reveal.  The 15 companies for whom Khattar was batting are in the business of manufacturing formaldehyde, a carcinogenic chemical that serves, among other things, as the basic raw material for the plywood industry. The companies, located in Yamunanagar district of Haryana, apparently began operations from 2009 onwards without the mandatory environment clearance, or EC.  This is a violation of India’s main law for environment clearance, the Environment Impact Assessment, or EIA, notification, 2006. To those unfamiliar with environmental law, failure of a company to apply for and receive EC before commencement of operations may seem like a minor, procedural issue. But the grant of an EC before commencement of a project is mandatory to ensure that any likely adverse impacts that may be caused by its activities are assessed properly and in …