Environment Impact Assessment 2020 is not in favour of democracy: Congress

Indian Youth Congress on Wednesday challenged Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) 2020 notice by calling it "enemies of individuals" and charging that the focal government is attempting to help industrialists through this notice, without being worried about its ecological results.

New Delhi: Indian Youth Congress, on Wednesday, protested against Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) 2020 notification by calling it "anti-people" and alleging that the central government is trying to help capitalists through this notification, without concerning about its environmental consequences.

The members of IYC sat staged a protest in front of the residence of Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar, here in Delhi. Srinivas BV, said in his statement, "After taking the economy into a trough and leaving thousands of people unemployed, the central government has now come up with draft EIA 2020 as environmental destruction for the benefit of its suit-booted friends. This government is anti-people and anti-democracy."

He further alleged, "This draft EIA 2020 conspires to endanger the lives of India's environment, biodiversity, ecology, poor tribals and our future generations. The suit-booted BJP government is preparing a part for open looting country's environment and natural resources for its industrialist friends as the new policy has a provision to compensate the project owners for polluting the environment but the project will not be banned."

Over 17 lakh number objections have been raised by various environmentalists, civil society groups, activists and political leaders, concerning over the contentious draft regulation and the need to overhaul environmental clearance system. A number of Congress leaders including Jairam Ramesh, Shashi Tharoor, Manickam Tagore have also written letters to Javadekar mentioning the need to scrap draft EIA 2020.

"Congress noted that EIA 2020 licences and legitimize environmental damage as it allows the project owners to, post-facto, pay compensation in cases where they pollute the environment and can also continue their operations. "Through this policy of Modi government, the lives, livelihoods, clean air, water will also be taken away from the people of India. The far-reaching consequences of this policy will be unfavourable for the future generation," said IYC President.

Congress also noted that 40 types of projects have been completely excluded, including sand and clay extraction, coal and non-coal mineral prospecting, solar thermal power projects and solar parks. However, no criteria for this exemption has been made public.

Therefore, the youth wing of Congress demanded that the new draft notification should be debated in the Parliament as it is going to impact the lives of the common man. Srinivas asserted, "14 per cent of India's population lives in coastal districts, a large part is below the poverty line and is affected by sea-level rise high temperature and weather unpredictable events, which have been completely ignored in EIA 2020. However, it is clear that the Modi government does not have faith in parliamentary traditions."

Union Minister Prakash Javadekar, on Monday, termed all the objections raised overdraft EIA 2020 as "unnecessary" and "premature", saying that it is not the final notification and all the suggestions given over this draft would be welcomed.