Criticism of proposed green rules premature: Javadekar

NEW DELHI: Calling the criticism of proposed green rules by Congress’ Rahul Gandhi and Jairam Ramesh as “unnecessary and premature”, environment minister Prakash Javadekar on Monday accused the previous UPA government of taking big decisions on environmental issues without public consultations and said it is not fair to jump to conclusions over the draft without waiting for the final decisions.
Javadekar said the ministry has already given 150 days for public consultations on the draft Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), 2020 notification due to the current Covid-19 situation, instead of 60 days as per the norms.
The minister had last week responded in detail to Ramesh, seeking to clarify on several contentious points in the draft EIA notification. Both had made their communication public on twitter.
The twitter debate between Javadekar and Ramesh, however, continued even on Monday with the latter being head of the parliamentary panel on environment and forests reiterating his demand to keep the notification in abeyance until the standing committee examines it in detail.
Rahul Gandhi too joined Ramesh in criticising the draft notification which many environmentalists think would be “disastrous” for environment and wildlife. They think the proposed norms would make it easier for violators to get green clearances for their polluting projects through the "ex-post facto approval" route.
Demanding its withdrawal, Gandhi on Monday tweeted, “EIA 2020 draft must be withdrawn to stop #LootOfTheNation and environmental destruction.”

Reacting to the Congress’ barbs, Javadekar said, “I saw reactions of some leaders that they want to protest the draft. How can they protest the draft? It’s a draft, not a final notification.”
Noting that the ministry has already received thousands of suggestions on the draft ahead of its August 11 deadline, he said, “We will consider all those suggestions and then come out with a final draft… Those who want to protest now had during their regime taken bigger decisions without any public consultation.”
The minister also said he had already responded to Ramesh in detail. In his letter to Ramesh, he noted that violators were previously allowed to regularise on a permanent basis using the route of office memorandum (OM) issued in 2010. Javadekar his ministry has now proposed to do it “not through OM but through new proposed notification with wider public consultation”.