EIA Notification 2006 Amendment
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Green activists see red in proposed amendment to EIA - Deccan Herald, 2 April 2009
DH News Service, New Delhi:
Miffed with the Centres attitude on a green notification that may damage the forest and ecology if implemented, almost 550 environmentalists and civil society organisations are planning to approach the Election Commission next week.
The activists are up in arms against a series of proposed amendments to the Environment Impact Assessment, 2006, allowing exemptions to a section of industries on the mandatory green clearance from the Centre before setting up new projects or expansion of the existing projects. The amendment completed its mandatory 60 days of public comments and there is nothing, which can prevent the union environment ministry to implement it after incorporating some of the comments.
They have approached Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who is also in charge of the Environment Ministry to withdraw the contentious amendments as they amount to �largesse of the state to the beneficiary industries and infrastructure project developers.
�We will wait for the Prime Minister�s Office to respond this week and if we don�t secure a response we will move the EC,� Leo Saldanha from Environment Support Group, Bangalore, told Deccan Herald.
The issue before the EC will be whether an outgoing government can issue a notification with such wide-ranging impact and may extend huge financial benefits to hundreds of companies across India on the eve of elections.
Once the new norms are in place, companies involved in shipping, dredging, building and construction, chemicals, manufacturing sector, road construction, mining and special economic zone may continue with some of their expansion projects without an independent check on the project�s ecological damage potential.
The activists also argued that the proposed amendment being subordinate legislation constitutes a fit case for application of the model code of conduct.
The biggest setback, they said, is the issue of �self certification� in conjunction with a three year environment monitoring holiday for certain projects.
After the new EIA notification came into existence in 2006, the Centre, irrespective of its responsibility of setting state-level environment impact assessment agencies and councils, allocated very little money to ensure these agencies were not set up at all.
Subsequently, in an interim arrangement, certain projects which were to be approved by the state were promoted to the central category. As a result over 2,000 projects were cleared by the Union Environment Ministry without thorough or any review at all, Saldanha said.
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