MANGALDAI, July 30 - There has been a strong resentment among the socially conscious section of citizens here over the proposed draft Environment Impact Assessment Rule 2020 (EIA in short) which is alleged to be anti-people.
A group of environmentally and socially conscious people, including senior lawyer and human rights activist Jayanta Deka, nature lover and sports organiser Sambhu Nath Deb, senior mediaperson and social entrepreneur Mayukh Goswami and member of Mangaldai Bar Association Nayan Mani Deka while expressing their strong resentment have already filed a petition to the Secretary, Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, New Delhi.
In the petition, they termed the proposed draft EIA notification-2020 as a serious threat to the environment. There is total dearth of element of universally accepted objectives of �protection and improvement of the environment� in the said draft.
The petitioners thus raised the demand for withdrawal of the proposed draft notification and to redraft it after due consultation with all the key stakeholders.
�It appears that the Government of India is determined to pass/endorse the proposed draft Environment Impact Assessment Rule 2020 (EIA in short) within a couple of months. There are several controversial clauses in the EIA and one such clause empowers the Government to declare a project as strategic. When a project is declared as strategic, the public will be completely deprived from procuring any information pertaining to such a project. So it is high time such anti-people subordinate legislation is strongly opposed,� said Jayanta Deka, one of the petitioners, while talking to this newspaper.�
�We would like to appeal to all the members of the civil society to pursue the EIA which is available in the public domain and raise protest before the Secretary, Union Ministry of Forest, Environment and Climate Change, New Delhi,� lawyer Deka added.
