After the Bhopal Gas tragedy in 1984, Government introduced EIA (
Environment Impact Assessment ). This is a process is applicable on every
construction in the country whether it’s real estate, Dam, Mines, and etc. The
main purpose of this EIA is to see, what the impact of any project on the environment
will be? And If there are more negative impact then the project doesn’t get
clearance. Or if there are less negative impact then How can it be avoided or
reduced?
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| Environment Impact Accessment 2020 (EIA) | Problems | Impact on environment |
EIA Draft 2020
The government declared that it was bringing about some
changes in the process of EIA this year. And they released their draft in the
month of March, document of around 80 pages. This draft entails the changes
that the government wants to bring about in Environmental Impact Assessment,
which they, ideally, want to make into a law.
According to Konchi Kolhi ( Senior Researcher, Center for Policy Research ), “It was meant
to be a law, which would help the government go ahead with the economic growth.”
PROBLEMS IN EIA 2020 DRAFT
Problem is that there are several issues with this New EIA
draft. Instead of making the Environment Act stronger, it makes it weaker. So
that all the industries are easily able to exploit it and this will cause the
disasters that we see today to multiply in the future.
POST-FACTO CLEARANCE
The first problem is that there is a clause of ‘post-facto
clearance’ in the draft that is, suppose A project has already started
construction somewhere without environmental clearance, then its not an issue.
Or A project has already in operation sometimes without environmental
clearance, then it is not an issue. The
project can get it’s clearance later.
“It was without obtaining prior consent to establish the oil plant from Pollution Control Board, Assam”. One of the reason for the recent incident of gas leak in the state of Assam.
PUBLIC HEARING REDUCED TO 20 DAYS
The second problem is the time of public hearing has been
reduced. Earlier, 30 days were designated to public hearing. Now, only 20 days
would be provided. So basically the public will get only 20 days to access the
negative Impact of the project.
EXEMPTIONS FROM PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
Third problem is that if a project violated an environmental
law then the public has no right to point out the violation. The violation can
be revealed by the violator himself or the government.
STRATEGIC EXEMPTIONS
The government says that the strategic projects according to
Government, Public information regarding that would not be revealed by the
government and no public hearing would be held. That basically means, the
government can put a stamp of “Strategic” on any project.
If you think this draft need some changes you can sent a mail to the issued EMAIL ID
Deadline to submit your suggestion is 11th August 2020.
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