Over the last fortnight, there has been severe criticism by environmentalists over the draft changes in the Environment Impact Assessment or EIA norms.
The National Environmental Engineering Research Institute has compiled and analysed the 20 lakh suggestions and objections received from the public with reference to this draft. What are the changes and why are experts calling this draft an unequivocal environmental disaster?
Former environment minister and senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh told Mitali Mukherjee the draft norms were serious dilutions of environmental safeguards that have been in place for over 30 years and are patently undemocratic as well.
Ramesh said Narendra Modi and Prakash Javadekar’s modus operandi seemed to be to speak a different ‘environment friendly’ language globally but not actually walk the talk within the country.