At the headquarters of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MOEFCC) in New Delhi, the 21-odd staff members of the three Environment Impact Assessment Divisions had an impossible task: to scrutinise some 1.7 million suggestions, comments and objections received through e-mails and by post in the past five months. Technically, and by law, every correspondence has to be carefully studied to cull out the ideas and feedbacks that will form the basis of India’s environmental governance in the days to come. MOEFCC has, by media accounts, allocated this work to the Nagpur-based National Environmental Engineering Research Institute.
The communications received are in response to the Union government’s draft Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) 2020 Notification. Arguably, no other environment-related notification has gathered such a response. Most of the comments are against the proposed provisions.
On March 12, two weeks before the national lockdown was imposed to counter the COVID-19 pandemic, MOEFCC published the draft EIA 2020 Notification on its website for public feedback. Some 15 years ago, in 2006, the government had adopted a new set of EIA procedures and mandatory requirements. The proposed notification will replace the EIA 2006 Notification.
Issued under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, the notification is the country’s only set of legally binding regulations to “make a scientific assessment of the likely impacts” of projects such as industrial units, waste treatment plants, mining and dams. It has provisions for mandatory public consultation and public hearing for clearance by local communities.
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