EIA 2020 AND NORTHEAST INDIA

Over the past few months the unexplored paradise has faced some grave environmental consequences. Floods, landslides, earthquakes has been an annual affair, adding to its woes is the Baghjan oil well blowout and then the pandemic. At a time when the region was facing various crisis amid crisis, came the Government’s decision regarding the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) 2020. There is no denying the fact that with the advent of the industrial revolution, the need for economic development has touched every sphere of life. Eventually, the economic priorities have engulfed the need for conservation, thereby affecting lives, livelihood and the environment. Northeast Today writes

The recently proposed draft of the EIA, 2020 by the Central Government has been strongly opposed by environmentalist, student organisations and civil society organizations, from all over the country as well as the Northeastern region of India. The EIA notification 2020, which aims to replace the existing 2006 EIA by altering many of its earlier clauses has been regarded as a regressive draft by several intellectuals. Some of the provisions that come under the ambit of the new draft include diluting the scope of public participation, legalizing post-facto environmental clearance, and removing the requirements of EIA study for several categories of projects, which weakens the provisions of reporting by companies.

If implemented, EIA, 2020, will be applicable across the country, with regards to setting up projects or expansion/ modernisation of existing projects entailing capacity addition. Interestingly, the public feedback window for the new EIA draft was closed on August 11. As the present EIA draft proposes the removal of several activities from the purview of public consultation it has become a matter of great concern for activists and civil society groups in Northeast too, as issues of environmental damage due to development projects has been dominating the public sphere in the region since a long time. Environmental activists consider the new version as an attempt to weaken environmental regulation and silence affected communities. Hence, the call for a united stand against this draft has been observed in the Northeastern region.