GREEN OVERSIGHT

Ever since it was made public on March 23, the draft Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification, 2020, by the Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change (MoEFCC) has invited severe criticism from environmentalists, activists and legal professionals. They allege that the central government is diluting the green clearance norms. Issued under Section 3 of the Environment Protection Act, 1986, the EIA notification prescribes procedures to regulate activities that impact our environment. India notified its first EIA norms in 1994, which were replaced in 2006. After 14 years, the Union government now wants to amend the norms to make the process “more transparent and expedient”.

Critics, however, claim the 2020 draft notification, if implemented, will not only favour industry over the fragile environment, but also limit public participation in environmental decision-making, and even reward violators. Most of them also allege that the Narendra Modi-led BJP government’s focus on enhancing ease of doing business has come at the cost of environmental degradation. In the past six years, India has seen a steady rise in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business ranking, up from No. 142 in 2014 to 63 in 2019. In sharp contrast, India’s rank in the Environmental Performance Index by the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy dropped from 155 in 2014 to 168 this year (out of a list of 180 countries). “Environment and development are seen as trade-offs, which is not the case. The government must do a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis, including the impact of development on nature