The new law for environment clearances has several controversial provisions
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| | As India went into lockdown in March 2020, the environment ministry uploaded the draft of a controversial new environmental law to widespread outcry. The proposed new law, which some green activists billed “a compilation of violations”, included provisions to grant environmental clearances to a wide variety of projects without rigorous scrutiny, and to allow those violating green laws to get their projects regularised by simply paying a penalty.
Now documents obtained by HuffPost India establish how this new law, called the draft Environment Impact Assessment notification 2020, is the outcome of a two-year process in which two environment ministers — Dr. Harshvardhan and his successor Prakash Javadekar — first tasked a committee of experts with mandates designed to yield these controversial provisions, and then signed off on them.
The result is a draft law that completely exempts—for a wide range of projects and activities—the need to conduct public consultation and to assess their likely impacts on human health and the environment. Worse, a decision about the kind of projects that can be allowed these relaxations will no longer be done after careful scrutiny by state level bodies or after public consultation, but by an opaque, centralised regime run by bureaucrats and experts sitting in New Delhi. |
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