From a post by LJ
the Draft EIA Notification 2020 dilutes environmental protections and safeguards in the existing law on environment impact assessment and relaxes procedure for grant of environmental clearances for many polluting sectors, projects and activities. By legalising post facto clearances, it is bound to result in large scale violations and practically take away the prior environmental clearance requirement. The proposed law is bound to only worsen the state of India's environment, at a time when our country's indicators are already among the worst worldwide and we are at the receiving end of the climate crisis.
A historic number of approx 2 million objections were received by the ministry to the draft EIA Notification 2020 released last year only in English during the peak of the pandemic. Inspite of the overwhelming public opposition to the proposed law, the Centre is proceeding with the same draft which will have disastrous circumstances.
http://environmentclearance.nic.in/writereaddata/Draft_EIA_2020.pdf
Objections to the Draft Environmental Impact Assessment Notification 2020 by PUCL Maharashtra | August 11, 2020
The Draft EIA 2020 is guilty of centralising control while over-delegating administrative function, thereby curbing the independence of the process and encouraging corrupt practices. The proposed legislation is undemocratic, an attack on local governance through grass-root participation and defies the principle of federalism that is part of the basic structure of the Constitution. By removing the requirement for public consultation for a large number of projects and introducing anti-people changes to the public consultation process, the Draft EIA 2020 has revealed its discomfort with public participation in decision making, which is a must in environmental governance and considered to be a key to achieving sustainable development. The Draft EIA 2020 is violative of the international principles of environmental law and violates important treaties and conventions to which India is signatory including the Rio Declaration, United Nations Framework on Climate Change, Paris Agreement etc. and is hence, also telling of India’s commitment (or lack of it) to the achievement of SDGs.
PUCL Maharashtra accordingly calls upon the MoEFCC to unconditionally withdraw the Draft EIA 2020 and suspend the process of introducing new law on the subject until the Covid-19 pandemic is successfully averted and people of the country are in a position to effectively participate.
PUCL Maharashtra suggests that instead a fair and participatory process be initiated to put in place a robust and strong environmental regime and in particular law to provide for environmental impact assessment, in consultation with the local communities, experts, defenders and all concerned stakeholders; taking into account their learnings, experiences and suggestions.