AIPCF demand the immediate withdrawal of the draft "Environmental Impact Assessment Notification 2020"

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 All India People's Cultural Forum  demand the immediate withdrawal of the draft "Environmental Impact Assessment Notification 2020"



We demand the immediate withdrawal of the draft "Environmental Impact Assessment Notification 2020" as it may contribute much for the acceleration of the ecological degradation throughout our country. 


We raise this demand of withdrawal because of the following reasons.


1) Even though the Supreme Court expressed it's disapproval in the practice of granting environmental clearance for industrial units, development projects etc. on a post facto basis, the present notification provides for post facto clearance for large scale projects having the potential for heavy environmental damage. Such a provision not only violates the very basic understanding of environmental security but the position put forward by the supreme court also.


2) It is quite important to get the opinions and concerns of the local people who would adversely be affected due to the industrial or developmental project which requires the clearance. While the  existing law stipulates it mandatory, the present draft of EIA 2020 weakens that process. lt marks some projects as having 'strategic considerations' and exempts from the entire process of public consultation. By increasing the list of project categories exempted from public consultation, our freedom of speech is curbed and the voices of affected communities suppressed. Wider questions of democracy are also involved in this as the said proposals didn't gone through any discussions of legislative bodies and experts.


3) The notification exempts some huge construction projects like the controversial Central Vista project in Delhi under category B2 from holding public hearing and public consultation before seeking environmental clearance.


4) The EIA 2020 prevents the general public and environmental organisations or activists and researchers from reporting violations of environmental norms from the part of industries or projects. It says that the violations of environmental laws should be reported only by government authorities or the developer or industrialist. It means that the reports of violations furnished by the violators themselves only would be considered by the government.


5) Fragile Coasts and flood defenders like mangroves and shores will be opened up to exploitation for port & industry development, affecting more than 20,000 aquatic fauna. 


6) Experts have pointed out that the provisions of the present draft notification violate the agreed international practices as it exempt certain categories of development projects from environmental clearance even without showing any rational or scientific reasons.


7) The dilution of environmental laws and norms as it can be seen in the draft EIA notification, will be highly detrimental to the principles of sustainable development, especially at the present situation of crisis due to water scarcity, pollution, global warming and climate change.


8) It is seen that the present draft notification exempts forty types of projects including clay and sand extraction projects, digging of wells, manufacturing of solar photovoltaic and coal and non coal mineral mining from prior environmental clearance. This clause is definitely going to affect farmers adversely and the base of rural life in many areas.


9) The proposed EIA 2020 makes the state level regulatory authorities and expert committees with regard to EIA and other environmental related issues powerless and gives the central government more control over state level bodies concerned. Thus it violates the very principles of federalism. 


10) The Hon'ble High Court of Karnataka have pointed out that the EIA 2020 proposal has to be made available in local language so as to make it understandable to people having no knowledge of English or Hindi. This also is a question related with federalism and democracy. This kind of notifications affecting and influencing the lives of people including tribals and marginalised has to be discussed among them also.


11) The EIA 2020 is very much concerned about the protection of interests of capital and its profit while the interests of common people, sustainable development, biodiversity, environmental security and the like are ignored deliberately.


12) The government tries to propagate that the promulgation of laws or norms like those in this notification would lead to rapid industrialisation and economic prosperity. Actually, any kind of legislation that causes environmental degradation will lead to deindustrialization and lowering of quality of people's lives.


13) It is true that the existing environmental laws are violated every day across the length and breadth of the country and the violators are gone unpunished. If such violations are possible in spite of the statutes, laws, regulations, institutions and the courts like Haritha tribunals what will be the outcome of dilution of existing laws and dismantling of the system on the basis of the said EIA 2020 !!


Hence, we demand the withdrawal of the said proposals of EIA 2020 and the effective implementation of the existing environmental laws to ensure sustainable development and scientific protection of  environment and  biodiversity.



P K Venugopalan,

Convener

All India People's Cultural Forum.

10/08/2020