New Delhi: Slamming the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for bringing out industry-friendly draft of environment impact assessment (EIA) notification, CPI (M) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat on Friday demanded the withdrawal of the contentious notification.
Expressing her displeasure over the draft EIA notification, Karat, in a letter to Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar, said, "The draft EIA 2020 is part of a wider policy approach of the present government to appease corporate interests and meet their demands in the name of encouraging investment and facilitating "ease of doing business." This includes policy decisions for dilution of environmental regulations for approval and compliance by industries."
She alleged that the changes made to liberalise and de-regulate commercial mining with relaxed environmental norms and time-frames are part of this approach. "The proposed changes are not guided by environmental concerns but by the concerns of corporate," she said in her letter to the union minister.
Highlighting the concerns of tribals, Karat said, "In the entire document the concerns of Adivasis, who are going to be most affected community due to the dilution of environment regulations, do not form any part of the notification as words like Adivasi, tribal, gram sabha, Forest Rights Act, Fifth Schedule, Sixth Schedule, PESA find no mention in the draft notification."
With regard to land acquisition, the constitutional and legal rights of adivasi communities have been ignored in the document, which itself is a strong ground to reject the notification, she said.
Pointing out flaws in the notification, Karat said, "There are four main specific areas of concern in the draft such as re-categorisation of projects to exempt a wide range of projects from the scrutiny of appraisal committees and also from public consultation, dilution and elimination of the process of public consultation, post-facto legalisation of violations by projects and a number of exemptions to projects."
"This draft notification should be withdrawn as protection of the environment is not the concern of draft EIA 2020. Rather it gives license for wrong-doing and violations. So, it may be redrafted taking the opinion of all stakeholders," she said.