Opposition to the Draft Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) 2020 continues with a group of 110 individuals, researchers, ecologists, conservationists, and allied professionals writing to Union Minister of Environment, Forests and Climate Change Prakash Javadekar deeming the draft as one that “legitimises environmental damage and undermines democracy”.
The co-signers include former members of the National Board for Wildlife, Project Tiger, Forest Advisory committee, National Tiger Conservation Authority, and various State Wildlife Boards.
The EIA is an important regulation through which the impacts of various developmental projects, land use, forest diversion, industrial pollution etc. on the environment are studied, and used to make informed choices in developmental decision making, the letter says.
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It adds that the EIA 2020 draft notification diminishes its scope significantly, and fundamentally changes the EIA process by reducing the number of regulatory oversights, reclassifying various industries so they are not required to get environmental clearance, compromising on public hearings with their scope and duration reduced and “normalising environmental violations.”
The group has urged the Centre to withdraw the draft and strengthen EIA 2006 instead.