“The EIA 2020 is only a draft and not a final notification. The ministry has received thousands of suggestions from the public which will be considered before a final draft”, said Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar.
New Delhi, August 16: Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi on Thursday demanded an immediate withdrawal of the draft EIA 2020, accusing the government of dismantling India’s environment rules and regulations.
The draft Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) notification, 2020, issued by the Environment Ministry in March this year, involves the procedure of issuing environmental clearances to various projects and has received thousands of suggestions from the public.
“The EIA 2020 is only a draft and not a final notification. The ministry has received thousands of suggestions from the public which will be considered before a final draft”, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said.
The government has a social obligation to protect the environment and must withdraw the EIA, Congress president Sonia Gandhi has said in an article.
She urged the government to stop dismantling India’s environmental regulations and withdraw the Draft EIA 2020 Notification, advising a widespread public consultation to shape a national agenda that would place India at the forefront of the battle against global warming and pandemics.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also shared the article on Twitter saying, “Nature protects, if she is protected”, and said the government must stop dismantling India’s environmental regulations, suggesting the withdrawing the Draft EIA 2020 notification as the first essential step.
Sonia Gandhi noted that the origins and spread of the global novel coronavirus pandemic and its catastrophic impact are a warning to the entire world, saying that the protection of the environment must go hand in hand with promoting public health and access to dignified livelihoods for all.
“With its rich biodiversity and widespread inequality, India must especially pay heed now. Our nation has all too often sacrificed the environment and the rights of our people while chasing the chimera of unbridled economic growth”, she said, observing that although progress requires trade-offs, but there must always be boundaries that shouldn’t be transgressed, alleging that the government has eroded the nation’s environmental protection framework in the last six years.
“The pandemic should have made the government reflect and reconsider its environmental and public health governance”, she said, accusing the Ministry of handing out clearances during the lockdown instead without proper public consultations. “The announcement of coal auctions by the Prime Minister in previously declared ‘no go’ areas signals that the government is in no mood for course correction,” she said
She asserted that the disastrous Draft Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), 2020 Notification, among other provisions, will give a clean chit to polluters violating environmental regulations through ex-post facto approvals, and will unleash unprecedented devastation on our environment.
Advocating the erstwhile Planning Commission’s expert group report on low carbon growth strategy along with various suggestions in the 2019 Congress Manifesto as a reference point, Sonia Gandhi said that, “We have an incredible opportunity to reset our economy and demonstrate leadership to the world with a growth strategy that transforms India into a green manufacturing hub”.
The Congress chief also said that she found the government’s idea of projecting an image of ‘Ease of Doing Business’ to the world as mindless of the consequences, alleging that it formed multiple committees, diluted laws and regulations across the board, and opened up vast tracts of forest land to a select few in the private sector, simultaneously suggesting that in times of such mass reverse migration, an environment protection through public works programmes including afforestation and watershed development can be turned into a grass-roots movement involving youth, women, communities, gram sabhas and non-governmental organisations.
Rahul Gandhi on Sunday termed the EIA 2020 draft as “dangerous”, and the long term consequences, if notified, as “catastrophic”, and urged people to protest against it.
In reply, Javadekar has brushed aside Congress leader’s criticism, terming it as “premature”, and also accused Congress leaders of taking important decisions without consultations during their regime.
