Why EIA 2020 could prove to be a disaster to everything we have built so far?

Remember LG’s polymer plant’s polystyrene gas leak event of May 7, 2020. It killed 12 people. Later it was found that the plant didn’t have proper environmental clearance for years but was still functional. At this point one can realize that how important is environment clearance and how negligent we are towards the disaster not having one can cause.

Most of us know Bhopal Gas Leak was the reason EIA and environmental policies came into stronger force, so that we can prevent such disasters from happening repeatedly, yet what we observe is that agencies are still a bit negligence.

Some developments that brewed up in the past few years, which have weakened the environment sustainability nexus are:

Issues with EIA 2020:

• While projects concerning national defense and security are naturally considered strategic, the government gets to decide on the “strategic” tag for other projects. The 2020 draft says no information on “such projects shall be placed in the public domain”. This opens a window for summary clearance for any project deemed strategic without any

explanation.

• The new draft exempts a list of projects from public consultation. Linear projects such as roads and pipelines in border areas will not require any public hearing. The ‘border area’ is defined as “area falling within 100km aerial distance from the Line of Actual Control with

bordering countries of India.” That would cover much of the Northeast, which is the country’s richest biodiversity.

• The draft notification may lead to creation of an ex-post-facto clearance route. The project proponent can enter an assessment procedure, with some minor fines for the violations. In other words, proponents have a route when an EIA clearance is not sought or granted, and the construction of the project had taken place. Where such ex-post-facto clearances were being granted previously, the courts cracked down on them as illegal. EIA would become a business decision as to whether the law needs to be followed or the violation can be “managed

Clearance Process:

For category A and B1 projects:

For category B2:

All applications seeking prior-EC for modernization within the existing

premises or mine lease area: