The politics of formulation of environmental impact assessment regulation in India: a case study

Abstract

While the extant literature on environmental impact assessment (EIA) regulation in India largely focuses on evaluating implementation, this paper studies the political processes that shape the formulation of EIA regulation. Specifically, the aim of this study is to understand the political actors that participate in the formulation process and their influence on the process. To address this research question, this paper conducts a content analysis of the publicly available documents (e.g. regulatory documents, published news reports and reports of expert committees) related to the process of amending the EIA regulation in 2009. The results show that while the overall balance of power is in favour of the economic growth lobby, the environmental groups also appear to exert some influence at the formulation stage. Extrapolating from the findings, the paper then develops a general model of the formulation process of EIA regulation in India, which shows the influence of various actors at various stages of the process.