Introduction

India plans a large expansion of nuclear power. The Indian Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) projects that hundreds of nuclear reactors will be constructed over the next few decades (Grover and Chandra, 2006). There is widespread concern about the potential environmental impact of these projects. At those sites that have been selected for new reactors, there has been significant grassroots level opposition. The formalmanner in which this has been expressedmost often is through the public consultation part of the environmental impact assessment (EIA) process.

The Environment Impact Assessment Notification of 2006 (EIAN2006) lists “nuclear power projects and processing of nuclear fuel” as requiring environmental clearances. However, not all facilities that are involved in the processing of nuclear fuel are subject to this procedure, for example, the reprocessing plants that chemically process radioactive spent fuel discharged from nuclear reactors, including civilian reactors.Barring such exceptions, nuclear facilities do have to be granted environmental clearances by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF). This paper examines the effectiveness of the environmental impact assessment process for nuclear facilities in India. We focus on the three key components: the EIA study itself, the public consultation, and the expert committee that oversees the clearance. By analyzing a number of nuclear projects that have received environmental clearances so far, we investigate if the process has actually identified the project\'s potential adverse impacts, the quality of the impact assessment, and the extent to which public concerns have been incorporated into decision making. We end with a number of recommendations that could help improve this process. Broadly speaking, the thrust of these recommendations is to improve the balances of power between the nuclear establishment on the one hand, and the regulatory agencies and civil society on the other hand. As our discussion below shows, currently the DAE and associated organizations possess overwhelming political power and can ensure favorable decisions in almost all cases.