What would you call a law which proposes the opposite of what its apparent purpose is?
Enter, the 2020 Draft of the Environmental Impact Assessment or the EIA.
The EIA, is a process under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 and is an important tool of environmental management forming a part of project approval and decision-making. The purpose of the assessment is to ensure that decision makers consider the environmental impacts when deciding whether or not to proceed with a project. Its goal is to ensure sustainable development and keep the environment safe.
The EIA 2020 is set to replace the current EIA Draft Notification of 2006. But ironically, it has been labelled as ‘a regressive departure’ from the 2006 version that it seeks to replace.
The draft EIA 2020 has faced heavy criticism from environmentalists and activists who believe that it is a serious dilution of the present rules and that it favors projects which violate rules and operate without environment clearance.
Here is why, the draft is supposedly causing more harm than good,
The EIA new draft 2020 allows post-facto clearance. This means that it allows projects to carry operations without clearances or environment safeguards. This can lead to serious consequences, as unmonitored operations can gravely harm the environment, for instance, in the form of major gas leakages. In my opinion, the draft has completely neglected sustainable development and is rather encouraging ruthless exploitation of the environment and its resources.
Secondly, one of the important provisions in the EIA process has been the involvement of locally affected persons and an addressal of their concerns on the project activity. This was carried out to make the process more transparent and authentic.
But the new draft is supposedly taking the power away from communities.
The current situation of the coronavirus disease pandemic has been taken advantage of and the allotted time for public hearings has been reduced to expedite the process. This has been an obstacle in the nationwide review of the document. Furthermore, it was initially only released in two languages, English and Hindi and in none of the regional languages, thereby making it inaccessible to countless regional communities for deliberation and discussion.
Another way in which this proposal tries to curtail rights of the communities is by by legalizing the currently punishable violations and projects which have already caused a great deal of harm and have been operating without approvals from the EIA. Regulations have also been loosened to report compliance only once a year, rather than twice.
But the silver lining to this adversity is that due to commendable efforts taken by multiple Not for Profit organisations, activists, environmentalists and even influencers, the date for the review of the Draft has been postponed till August 11th 2020. This gives us time to reflect on the negative impact this draft can pose on the lives of numerous communities in rural and urban areas, their livelihoods and on the accountability of exploitative industries, in the protection of the environment.
In a world which is already battling with grave issues like Climate Change, a revision to the law which is detrimental to the environment is nothing short of laughable. Let’s be aware of the laws which disguise themselves and even use this pandemic as a blanket to hide transparency and deter the community from actively participating in decision making. Most importantly, let us use this as an opportunity to assess the sustainability of our actions because the planet requires our care now more than ever.
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