The Environment Ministry has made it mandatory for industrial houses putting up large projects with more than one component, like a steel plant with a captive mine or a captive port, to prepare a single comprehensive environmental impact assessment (EIA) report to be considered in its entirety.

This is done to avoid a situation wherein approval to the main project ties down the hands of the ministry in assessing the associated components of that project in an objective manner. Very often these associated components, like a captive mine or a captive power plant, are presented to the ministry as a fait accompli after the main project has been approved.

Even in the instance of the high-profile POSCO project, one set of applications and EIA reports were submitted for the clearance of the proposed iron and steel plant along with a captive power plant, and another set for the proposed captive port, though all of them are part of the same project.