New Delhi: Senior Congress leader and former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh attacked the Central Government for "disregarding" environmental laws in the draft notification of Environment Impact Assessment 2020, which has proposed to ease many rules relating to the environment approvals for various developmental projects.
"The fundamental guiding principle of this draft EIA 2020 notification is Ease of Doing Business, not Environmental Regulations," alleged the Congress leader.
Jairam Ramesh was addressing an online discussion, moderated by former Rajya Sabha MP, Rajeev Gowda, on the matter of need to scrap draft EIA notification 2020. He even claimed that a number of organizations have also sent representation to the Ministry of Environment while raising objections over the draft notification.
While explaining about the reasons, Ramesh said that the new draft has reduced the role of public hearing as it allows post-facto approvals which go against the very principle of assessment and public participation prior to environment clearance. "In the last 6 years, there's a continuous attempt by this Government to muzzle the voice of civil society," said Jairam Ramesh.
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He also alleged that the EIA draft 2020 gives complete power to the Central Government to appoint State Environmental Impact Assessment Authorities. "On one side, you are talking about cooperative federalism, while on the other, you are centralizing the whole system," he added.
On Friday, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment, Forests and Climate Change also held a discussion on draft EIA 2020. Jairam Ramesh, who is the chairman of this committee, said that some BJP-NDA members argued that the discussion is not needed since it is just a draft notification which will undergo changes.
He alleged, "The track record is one of global rhetoric. But domestically, we are diluting all the environmental acts that we have and it is being done in a manner to help businesses. This Government thinks that environmental regulation is a burden or a speed breaker. This is a very dangerous mindset."
The Congress leader has also written a number of letters to the Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar, while "strongly objecting" to the proposed EIA draft. Various environmental experts and NGOs are also raising concerns over the dilution of various rules which would allow rampant infrastructure development without prior environment clearance.
"Land laws and Environmental laws will become the biggest casualty in the near future. This notification is just the tip of an iceberg. It's a part of a series of such decisions," asserted Jairam Ramesh. He also assured that he'll surely take up this matter in the next Parliament session.
As Javadekar had termed the "publicity" of Jairam Ramesh's letter as "premature", the Congress leader said today, during the discussion, "This is a Government that can chant Sanskrit shlokas about forest conservation, but it's not the talk which counts. It's the walk that matters."
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