EIA exempts many projects from public hearing, withdraw it: Assam Cong urges Centre

Assam Congress president Ripun Bora has urged the Centre to withdraw the draft Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) 2020, saying that it exempts a long list of projects from public consultation. Linear projects such as roads and pipelines in border areas will not require any public hearing and this would cover much of the Northeast India, which is a repository of one of the country's richest biodiversity, Bora said in a letter to the Secretary of the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, made available to the media on Tuesday.

In the earlier EIA notification, defence and national security installations were under the exempted category but the present draft has a "vague new category of projects involving other strategic considerations which will also now be free from public consultation requirements, showing lack of transparency", Bora said. The draft is silent about the biodiversity and ecology of Northeast India as well as the state of Assam, he said.

"Large areas of land and forest have been merged into the river bed of Brahmaputra and its tributaries with the passage of time and the process is still continuing but the draft is silent on it", the Rajya Sabha MP said. The draft EIA encourages further pollution, with diluted regulations over industrial and development practices, he alleged.

The draft proposes a permanent mechanism for industries by creating an opportunity for post-facto approvals when the Supreme Court had disapproved the concept of post- facto environmental projects that are initiated without clearance. The Supreme Court had observed in 2016 that "ecologically rational outlook must be adopted towards development and given the social and environmental impacts of industrial activity, environment compliance must not be seen as an obstacle to development but as a measure towards achieving sustainable development and inter-generational equity", Bora said.

The draft also proposed declaration of some areas as "Economically Sensitive Areas" without a public hearing or comments from stakeholders, which is against democratic principles and which would cause severe damage to environment and diversity, he claimed. The draft extends the validity period for approvals in critical sectors such as mining and other heavy industries to 50 years instead of 30 years, and 15 years instead of 10 years respectively, risking of irreversible environmental, social and health consequences, Bora pointed out.

"Under these facts and circumstances, I request you to take necessary steps to immediately withdraw the Draft EIA Notification, 2020", he added..

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