20/07/2020
Petition ৰ বাবে এই লিংকটোত ক্লিক কৰক
http://chng.it/BBKDTY66WV
Mail কৰাৰ বাবে ঠিকনা এইটো
[email protected]
Subject এইটো :
WITHDRAW THE DRAFT EIA NOTIFICATION 2020
Mail কৰাৰ বাবে তলৰ কথাখিনি কপি কৰি ওপৰৰ mail ID ত পেষ্ট কৰি তলত নিজৰ নামটো লিখি post কৰক বা নিজৰ মতে সজাই লওক । ধন্যবাদ
To
Shri Prakash Javadekar,
(Minister of Environment, Forests and Climate Change)
Indira Paryavaran Bhawan,
Jor Bagh, New Delhi.
SUBJECT: WITHDRAW THE DRAFT EIA NOTIFICATION 2020
Dear Shri Prakash Javadekar Ji,
We, the people of Assam and the North East, reject this draft EIA 2020 as a potential law of this country for the reasons listed below:
1. The draft does not acknowledge the best practices in EIA from across the world. Many countries have EIAs that are implemented at the sectoral (power or transport), strategic (energy transition) and crosscutting (health and biodiversity) scale for greater effectiveness and better environmental governance. Your draft is regressive because it aims at approving projects more than assessing them.
2. The new draft exempts a long list of projects from public consultation. For example, 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 100 kilometres aerial distance from the Line of Actual Control with bordering countries of India.” That would cover much of Assam and the Northeast, the repository of the country’s richest biodiversity. So our rights to raise questions, our rights to raise our concerns will be diluted. Again, by not allowing us to raise our concerns, the proposed EIA 2020 is creating inequality among citizens & defying very object of a democracy.
3. It is unacceptable that we, the people of this country, are not allowed to speak about the
projects that are imposed on our neighbourhoods, our coasts and forests.The draft EIA 2020
proposed by the Ministry clearly reflects the fear of public participation in the central
government. The draft gives impunity to so many projects from public hearings that it makes
us think if these projects are for the good of a select few. There have been many protests by the people of Assam and the North East against the proposed big dams and hydroelectric projects. We are well aware about the ill effects of these proposed mega dams. The draft EIA 2020 will take away our rights to raise these pertinent questions.
4. While projects concerning national defence 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 having to explain why.
5. We do not want another Baghjan. The Covid pandemic lockdown has shown us how unequal our society is. The poorest people of our region and the communities that live in forest areas, coastal regions and the
mountains, rely on environmental resources to survive. There are enough studies to show
that nature thrives only when environmental communities are safe and prosperous. We
demand that the government must draft laws that enable marginalised communities to
prosper and be able to conduct practices that sustain their livelihoods. The government must
do away with EIA dilutions that entrust our valuable natural resources to private industries.
The central government has done so little to combat climate change, environmental degradation and biodiversity loss even after the responsibility bestowed upon us by the Paris Climate Change Agreement.
6. There have been apprehensions among the people of Assam and the Northeast that everything this region possesses in the form of natural and other resources are only exploited by vested interests in cahoots with the state machinery in Delhi. That decisions of varied nature, mostly detrimental to the interests of the natives here, are only ‘imposed’ on the collective psyche of the common masses is a foregone conclusion. A general feeling of alienation and deprivation has taken root in the minds of the common people here over the years since Independence that Assam and the Northeast always get a step-motherly treatment from the Centre. Facts, figures, events and the collective experience have led to a very damaging negative mindset of the diverse peoples of this region towards the Central Government. The proposed EIA Notification, 2020, if implemented in toto, will only precipitate this negativity further, which will be in contrast to what the Prime Minister of India often refers to – making the Northeast the engine of growth for the country.
I demand the Ministry to withdraw the EIA 2020 and replace it with a progressive law that promotes sustainability and combats climate change.
Sincerely,....…...........
(Copy Manas Robin Page)