Environmental Impact Assessment Notification 2006

The Environmental Impact Assessment Notification 2006 is a subordinate legislative instrument issued by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (now the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, MoEFCC) on 14 September 2006 under Section 3 of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 read with Rule 5 of the Environment (Protection) Rules, 1986. It superseded the earlier EIA Notification of 27 January 1994, which had first made environmental clearance mandatory for a narrow list of 29 project categories. The constitutional underpinning lies in Article 48A and Article 51A(g) of the Constitution, while the statutory authority flows from India's commitments at the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. The 2006 instrument fundamentally restructured the clearance architecture by decentralising decision-making and introducing a screening-based categorisation that remains the operative regime today.

The procedural core of the Notification rests on a four-stage process applied to projects in the Schedule. The first stage is Screening, applicable only to Category B projects, where a State-level Expert Appraisal Committee determines whether a project requires a full assessment (designated B1) or may proceed without one (B2). The second stage is Scoping, in which the Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) at the Centre or the State Expert Appraisal Committee (SEAC) prescribes the Terms of Reference (TOR) defining the scope of studies the proponent must conduct. The third stage is Public Consultation, comprising a public hearing in the affected locality conducted by the State Pollution Control Board and a written representation process for other concerned persons. The fourth stage is Appraisal, a detailed scrutiny of the final EIA report, the Environment Management Plan, and outcomes of public consultation, after which the EAC or SEAC makes recommendations to the regulatory authority for grant or rejection of prior environmental clearance.

The Schedule to the Notification distinguishes two categories based on the threat of pollution and the project's size. Category A projects require clearance from the MoEFCC at the central level on recommendation of the EAC; Category B projects are cleared by the State Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA) on recommendation of the SEAC. All Category A projects, and Category B1 projects, mandatorily require an EIA report and public consultation; Category B2 projects are exempt from both. Where no constituted SEIAA or SEAC exists in a State, the project defaults to treatment as Category A and is handled centrally. Activities not appearing in the Schedule require no clearance, and the Notification also recognises General Conditions and Specific Conditions that can escalate a Category B project to Category A — for instance, proximity to inter-State boundaries, protected areas, or critically polluted zones.

The regime has shaped major decisions across Indian capitals. The MoEFCC's EAC for River Valley and Hydroelectric Projects has appraised contested schemes such as the Polavaram and the Lower Subansiri projects, while SEIAAs in States including Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu process thousands of building, mining, and industrial proposals annually. The Notification was amended repeatedly — a notable instance being the December 2009 expansion of building and construction provisions, and the September 2006 inclusion of the Coastal Regulation Zone interface. The Sterlite Copper smelter at Thoothukudi, the subject of clearance disputes culminating in its 2018 closure, and the Vedanta bauxite mining clearance at Niyamgiri, rejected after the Supreme Court's April 2013 gram-sabha verdict, both illustrate the Notification's operation alongside the Forest Rights Act.

The EIA Notification 2006 must be distinguished from the broader concept of environmental clearance, which is the regulatory outcome the Notification produces, and from forest clearance granted separately under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, which governs diversion of forest land and follows an entirely different appraisal track under the FAC. It also differs from the Coastal Regulation Zone Notification (most recently 2019), which regulates construction along coastlines under the same parent Act but through a distinct Coastal Zone Management Authority mechanism. Whereas a strategic environmental assessment evaluates policies and plans, the EIA regime here is project-specific, triggered only by listed activities crossing threshold capacities.

Controversy has attended the regime's dilution and the proposed Draft EIA Notification 2020, which sought to legitimise post facto clearance for projects begun without prior approval, expand the list of exempted activities, and reduce the public consultation notice period from 30 to 20 days. The draft drew over a million public objections and remains unnotified. The Supreme Court in Common Cause v. Union of India (2017) and in Alembic Pharmaceuticals v. Rohit Prajapati (2020) held that ex post facto clearance is fundamentally contrary to environmental jurisprudence and the precautionary principle. The National Green Tribunal, established in 2010, has become the principal forum for challenging clearances, frequently remanding EAC recommendations for inadequate scoping or flawed public consultation.

For the working practitioner — whether a civil services aspirant preparing General Studies Paper III, a desk officer in a State environment department, or a policy researcher tracking infrastructure pipelines — the Notification is the operative gatekeeper between project conception and lawful commencement. Mastery requires fluency in the Schedule's category thresholds, the screening logic that separates B1 from B2, and the General Conditions that can centralise an otherwise State-level project. It also demands awareness of the tension between development imperatives and the precautionary principle that the judiciary continues to police, making the EIA Notification 2006 a living instrument at the intersection of administrative law, federalism, and environmental governance.