The chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Jairam Ramesh, urged Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar to keep the draft Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) 2020 notification in abeyance until the committee examines it in detail.
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The Standing Committee began deliberations on EIA 2020 at its meeting held on Friday. The last date of submitting feedback to the Ministry on the notification ends on Tuesday.
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Continuing the extended dialogue ongoing between Mr. Ramesh and Mr. Javadekar, in a fresh letter Mr. Ramesh said the EIA 2020 was “fundamentally flawed” and it made a mockery of the Prime Minister’s many statements on the need to protect the environment.
Various concerns had been raised in representations to the committee, Mr Ramesh said, like for instance, how could a subordinate legislation override the parent Act from which it was derived like the draft EIA Notification 2020 did vis-à-vis the Environment Protection Act, 1986?
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He refuted Mr. Javadekar’s claim that the environment clearance was not ex post facto but prospective in nature. “If the clearance permits the illegally constructed portion of the project to remain or the illegal operating part of the project to continue, and there is no direction for demolition of the illegal portion or reduction of the illegally enhanced capacity – then it is not a prospective clearance. It is being granted ex facto, and it is regularising the illegality committed by the project proponent,” he said.
