Meera

Meera Sanghamitra has been awarded the Girish Sant Memorial Fellowship for 2017.

Meera is a lawyer by education. She has worked on human rights issues and spent many years as an NBA activist. As one of the founding members, she also floated a fledgling student human rights group, which engaged with various rights issues, crisis interventions and fact-findings, distress situation response, follow-up and worked with groups and campaigns in Hyderabad.

The theme of the research was the challenges of pro-people and environmentally sustainable electricity governance in India's youngest state, Telangana. The topic was  "Socio-environmental Regulatory Governance Aspects of Thermal Power Plants in Telangana: Issues, Challenges and Ways Forward".  Along with a detailed assessment of the socio-environmental gaps and issues  around  the  four  identified  thermal projects in Telangana,  the study  tries  to  make  certain  generic  observations  and suggestions  to  strengthen  the  regulatory  mechanisms.  While  some  of  these  are  process specific  related  to Environment Impact Assessment,  public  hearing  and  social  impact  areas,  others  are  institution  related  i.e.  on  the  role  of  Pollution Control Board,  Expert Advisory Committee, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and civil society. 

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