Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Prakash Javadekar on Sunday replied to a letter by Congress leader Jairam Ramesh r...
Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Prakash Javadekar on Sunday replied to a letter by Congress leader Jairam Ramesh raising strong objections to the draft Environmental Impact Assessment, 2020 notification, calling his suggestions “unfounded” and based on “misrepresentation”, PTI reported. Ramesh, a former environment minister, is the chairperson of the Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment, Forests and Climate Change.
In his letter, Ramesh alleged that the draft notification reduces public participation in all steps of the environmental clearance process by “lessening the notice period for public hearings and doing away with them for a large category of projects”.
“It does away with environment impact assessment altogether in very many cases of expansion,” Ramesh said. “It increases validity of environment clearances allowing projects to secure land for long durations even when they are not constructed this promotes land grab, not development. It gives the union government full powers to appoint state environment impact assessment authorities.” Ramesh claimed that the EIA draft was another blow to the spirit of cooperative federalism.
Ramesh also pointed out that the changes were not based on research, and added that the draft was the result of an attitude that sees environmental regulation as an “unnecessary regulatory burden”, and not as...
