Participatory Approach for Corporate Social Responsibility Plan in India

The ministry of environment, forest and climate change (MoEF&CC) has notified the environmental impact assessment (EIA) Notification, 2006 under the provisions of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, which regulates development and expansion/modernization of 39 sectors/activities listed in the Schedule to the EIA Notification, 2006. There are two category of the projects viz. Category ‘A’ projects are handled at the level of MoEF&CC and the Category ‘B’ projects are handled by the respective State Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA) following the procedure prescribed under the EIA Notification, 2006. Developmental projects in various sectors need environmental clearance either SEIAA or MOEF&CC (MoEF) depending upon their categories and scale of development. A project proponent, any person desiring to establish his industrial unit or project is required to apply for environmental clearance (EC) before establishing project or industry for getting the EC. Standard procedures of development of environmental impact assessment (EIA) Report are prescribed by the authorities and are available in public domain. Project Proponents approach EIA consultants to prepare their EIA reports as per the norms and standard procedures. EIA consultants are the persons or group of persons having experience and specialization in various environmental aspects and are conversant with various policies applicable at the state or national level. The government of India, MoEF&CC has adopted various measures to improve the quality of EIA reports prepared by the consultants. Recently, grading of consultants and their accreditation has been enforced through quality council of India (QCI) under the scheme National Accreditation Board for Education and Training (NABET). Only NABET approved consultants and laboratories are permitted to prepare EIA reports and make presentations on behalf of Project Proponent to state or MoEF&CC authorities. Various studies of environmental parameters are undertaken by the expert EIA consultant organization, results are tested in approved laboratories and reports are generated for EC. MoEF&CC has also prescribed the preparation of social impact assessment reports (SIA), socio-economic survey reports (SES), ecology and biodiversity (EB) reports, rehabilitation and resettlement plans (R&R) and corporate social responsibility plans (CSR) to be a part of EIA reports. Standard terms of reference (TOR) for EIA/EMP report for projects/activities requiring environment clearance has been issued by MoEF&CC in April 2015. It contains a general condition for CSR that “along with details of villages and specific budgetary provisions (capital and recurring) for specific activities over the life of the project should be given.” This paper deals with methodology of preparation of CSR plans as per the felt needs of project affected people. Classically, CSR is considered as a responsibility of project proponent to compensate losses to the environment and people that are directly or indirectly affected due to project. This paper gives insight on developing the CSR plan as per felt need of people in core as well as peripheral zone of the project. Existing approach of preparation of CSR plan can be benefited by the proposed methodology and project proponents can deliver their social responsibilities keeping people and environment in focus. The participatory approach of involving people and various techniques of participatory rural appraisal (PRA) and logical framework analysis (LFA) can be used to collect and synthesize the information for developing CSR plans; in fact, people themselves develop the plan.