WHAT IS ALL THE FUSS ABOUT THE EIA 2020 DRAFT?

All about the new controversial Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) 2020 draft released by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC).

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MUNner’s Daily

6 min readAug 5, 2020

#opinion
I recently happened to read 1984 by George Orwell. It’s about a dystopian country called Oceania which had ministries named after what it worked against. For example, the Ministry of Love dealt with war, and the Ministry of Truth dealt with propaganda and fake news. Even though it might be an exaggeration to compare that with our contemporary world and governments, it certainly is worth noting the similarities towards which our government and ministries are working towards.

One such governing body that came under huge criticism, recently, was the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC). The MoEFCC, which is headed by Babul Supriyo and Prakash Javadekar released Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) 2020 draft which, at its core, is meant to be a legal framework for regulating activities that access, utilize and pollute natural resources.

History

Government of India enacted laws to control water (1974) and air (1981) pollution as part of being a signatory of the Stockholm Declaration on Environment in 1972. The Bhopal gas tragedy in 1986 showed the failure of the previously mentioned laws and that led to the Environment(Protection) Act of 1986. It was under this act that the EIA norms were notified in 1994. This was later modified in 2006. The current EIA 2020 draft is meant to replace the previous norms(2006) and the MoEFCC has kept the draft in the public domain for comments and feedback. The deadline for this has been extended by the Delhi HC to 11th August 2020 due to the unprecedented Corona pandemic.

This article aims at why we must know about the EIA draft and how we can act as a responsible citizen to save our Mother Nature. Click here to download the PDF of the draft of 2020.

Concerns

Let’s look at why the EIA draft of 2020 seems to be, what is called by several activists, regressive.

The draft states that projects, “involving other strategic considerations, as determined by the Central govt”, will not be placed in the public domain. The worrying aspect of this is that it has not been specified as to what does “strategic considerations” mean. It also leaves an opportunity for the govt to snub or hide projects from the public(scrutiny) by announcing it under “strategic considerations”.
Exemptions-There is a list of the selected projects in the new draft that have been proposed to be exempted from public participation. Modernization of irrigation projects, expansion or widening of national highways, all projects concerning national defence and security, are part of the list. This list also includes roads and pipelines falling in “border area” which is defined as, an area falling within 100 km of aerial distance from LAC with its bordering countries. This would affect much of the biodiversity of places such as North East India. Furthermore, construction projects of up to 150,000 square meters, all inland waterways, and national highways projects are also exempted from EIA norms.
Post Facto Clearance- There is an attempt to shift from the ‘polluter-pays-principle’ to the ‘pollute-and-pay’ principle which would cause severe environmental problems. The draft gives illegal projects and activities a clean chit by providing them to pay for the environmental damage caused and continue to do the same thing. This is a mockery of the whole draft itself. To understand how ridiculous this is, on an estimation these fines range from Rs 2000–10000 per day. For a company that may be earning lakhs per day, these fines don’t even cause a dent on them, yet they get to continue and get away with their illegalities. This change comes even after the Supreme Court on April 1, 2020, ruled outpost facto clearance and stated it as contrary to the law itself.
When it comes to violations committed by projects and activities that were approved, it can only be reported either by a govt authority or the developer itself! There is no scope for public complaints and this means that the onus is on the project developer to disclose the laws they have broken(suo motto). I am sure we all must be aware of illegal sand mining near river banks especially in South India, the new draft won’t allow you(citizen) to complain against it rather a govt official or the person committing the crime is expected to disclose it.

What is even more worrisome is that this ‘liberalization’ towards the industrialists is done by replacing something which itself wasn’t effective enough to keep a check on them. Under the previous norms, it is estimated that up to 87% of the projects submitted were given environmental clearance between 2014 and 2020. The poor implementation of the existing norms could be seen in cases like the gas leak at Vishakhapatnam and blowing up of oil refineries in Assam where companies didn’t comply with the rules.

What can we do?

We(citizens) have been given an ultimatum on 11th August 2020 for feedback and keeping in mind our fundamental duties towards nature, we ought to speak out and spread awareness among our friends and relatives. I would urge the reader to email your concerns regarding the EIA draft 2020 to the MoEFCC at eia2020-moefcc@gov.in. There are several NGOs that will help guide you on how to do your part effectively. Even though they may be slapped with UAPA by our environmental minister himself, which was taken back after flak, it is our duty to support these NGOs for they have been behind such issues for years. Some of these NGOs which you must check out are Fridays for future, Let India Breathe, Thereisnoearthb.

To know more about UAPA, check out this article :

Should we be scared of the UAPA?

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It seems like the current govt, in its pursuit towards “Ease of Business”, “5 trillion Dollar Economy” and “Atmanirbhar Bharat” ceases to recognize the importance of keeping check with our environment, the environmental effect of “development” and most of all upholding democratic values by giving a say to the public in these projects. After all, it was our PM himself who said …

So, at the least, let’s take our PM’s words seriously and speak up against the EIA draft 2020!

For more about EIA 2020 Draft follow the links below-

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