10/08/2020
Kerala had been faced unusually high rainfall since early August of 2018 and still , which has led to statewide floods killing hundreds and causing severe damage.
At least 167 people have lost their lives and over two lakh people are in relief camps.
Most of the regions impacted by this monsoon were once classified as ecologically-sensitive zones (ESZs) by the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP), also known as the Gadgil Committee.
The report was crafted by a team headed by Madhav Gadgil, ecologist and founder of the Centre for Ecological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. According to environmentalists, the committee's recommendations were strong enough to protect the sensitive Western Ghat region.
The committee had suggested that 140,000 kilometres of the Western Ghats be classified in three zones as per the requirement of environmental protection in the areas.
In some areas, the committee recommended strong restrictions on mining and quarrying, use of land for non forest purposes, construction of high rises etc. The report was first submitted to the government in 2011.
But the Kerala government rejected the committee report and did not adopt any of its recommendations.
Speaking to various regional media, Madhav Gadgil has said that irresponsible environmental policy is to be blamed for the recent floods and landslides in Kerala. He also called it a "man-made calamity".
He said that the committee report had recommended to protect the resources with the cooperation of local self governments and people, but those recommendations were rejected. He also pointed out that quarrying is a major reason for the mudslides and landslides.
Other environmentalists also point fingers at the extensive quarrying, mushrooming of high rises as part of tourism and illegal forest land acquisition by private parties as major reasons for the recent calamity.
For all these
Withdrew EIA 2020
Can you help me out by signing this petition?
http://chng.it/VXjV48Q8
Subject: withdraw EIA 2020
Sent the following message to mail ids: [email protected]
And [email protected]
Secretary
Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change
Indira Paryavaran Bhawan
I know that in March 2020, the ministry proposed a draft notification to replace the 2006 document. The notification is at the stage of public comments. The new notification is being supposedly being brought in order to make the process more transparent and expedient by implementation of an online system, further delegation, rationalisation and standardisation of the process.
The new notification includes certain provisions which could end up diluting the EIA process, especially the public consultation aspect. It provides for a reduction of time period from 30 days to 20 days for the public to submit their responses during a public hearing for any application seeking environmental clearance. It also requires that the public hearing process be completed in 40 days compared to 45 days under the 2006 notification. The main reason stated for reducing the time is that it would become easy for new investments to complete the formality of EIA.
The danger is that if adequate time is not given for the preparation of views, comments and suggestions to those who would be affected by the project, then such public hearings would not be meaningful. In the Samarth Trust Case, the Delhi high court had considered EIAs a part of participatory justice in which the voice is given to the voiceless and it is like a jan sunwai, where the community is the jury.
Unless a public hearing is meaningful, the whole EIA process would lack transparency and credibility. The reduction of time would particularly pose a problem in those areas where information is not easily accessible or areas in which people are not that well aware of the process itself. As the Supreme Court has said in several judgements over the years, the time for making any representation should be adequate and if it is not, then it would be a violation of the principles of natural justice.
Even though the notification provides for the dissemination of information relating to public hearings through newspapers (and where dissemination through newspapers is not possible then by beating of drums or through radio or TV), the problem still remains. The issue of concern here is not the notice for public hearing but the access to information on which the affected people need to comment.
Suggestions:
- Rather than compromising on the time needed for gathering public opinion, the government should focus on bringing down the average delay of 238 days in granting environmental clearance. In Kerala, the administration took 1,049 days to clear the construction of the IT park project of M/s T Tech Park Ltd, instead of 105 days.
- Either extend the public hearing time for EIA2020 or please scrap the current norms that are very detrimental for the environment as well as communities and their livelihoods.
Sincerely,
A Concerned Citizen
We Reject Draft EIA, 2020
