BJP and Congress MPs come on same page, demand extension of deadline to fine tune green norms

NEW DELHI: Amid calls from environmentalists for withdrawal of the Centre’s draft notification on new green norms, two Rajya Sabha MPs - one each from ruling BJP and opposition Congress - on Friday demanded extension of time given to stakeholders for public comments on the proposed changes in view of the current situation due to Covid-19 crisis. The changes in the draft include certain relaxed provisions for clearances to industries and infrastructure projects.
Both the MPs, Jairam Ramesh of Congress and Rajeev Chandrasekhar of BJP, separately tweeted their demands seeking extension.
The environment ministry had on March 12 issued a draft Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) notification, 2020 and gave 60 days time to stakeholders for submitting their comments/suggestions on it which while suggesting various changes also proposed to have a permanent mechanism for post-facto environment clearances for industries that continued their operations by violating norms under existing 2006 EIA rules.
“This deadline should be extended by another three months, at least due to Covid-19, to enable a better understanding of major changes proposed,” tweeted Ramesh, former environment minister.

Within five minutes of Ramesh’s tweet, the BJP member Rajeev Chandrasekhar too tweeted and urged environment minister Prakash Javadekar to extend the deadline which is to end this month.
“This deserves a good robust public discussion of changes proposed and its implications,” wrote Chandrasekhar.

Retweeting Chandrasekhar’s tweet with his comment, Ramesh then wrote, “One of those occasions when I agree with a BJP MP.”

Citing various proposed changes in the draft, environmentalists have, however, been demanding withdrawal of the draft ever since it was issued in March. Few of them even demanded a comprehensive full fledged law, like Biodiversity Act, to review environmental and social impacts of development projects.
“There are two fundamental faults in promoting a comprehensive amendment of EIA notification during the lockdown. First is a simple and straightforward problem: public's freedoms are suspended, so they cannot obviously comment. Internet based commenting is no replacement for actual democratic engagement in law making,” said Bengaluru-based researcher, Leo Saldanha, from Environment Support Group (ESG).
He said, “The second more serious problem is that the promotion of amendment of a subordinate law, such as the EIA notification, which has direct impact on fundamental rights governed by other laws, such as tribal rights governed by Forest Rights Act, cannot be the exclusive privilege of the environment ministry.”
Earlier, experts from the New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research (CPR), including its senior fellow Manju Menon and senior researcher Kanchi Kohli, too had written to the ministry, urging it to withdraw the notification and defer the process of public comments in the light of the Covid-2019 pandemic.
“Opportunities to understand and discuss the implications of the proposed amendments may be severely hindered due to the present health emergency with restricted public movement, social distancing and challenges to everyday life activities. These restrictions also make it impossible to disseminate information about the notification to communities who deserve to know and influence the notification,” said the CPR researchers in their letter to environment secretary, C K Mishra, on March 24.