Suriya Sivakumar on Environmental Impact Assessment - EIA

All you want to know about Environmental Impact Assessment 2020 (EIA 2020)

     We have already posted nearly 25 articles in our Summation X blogspot. Each  of the articles that we posted are under the topics of medicine, technology, mobile phones, apps even we have covered scam related posts too.

           As we were searching for a topic to cover in our next article, Environmental Impact Assessment(EIA) of 2020 grabbed our attention as this topic was under spicy debate on social media.

  Recently celebrities also shared their views regarding this..
          
One of Tamil film industry superstars Mr. Suriya Sivakumar and Mr. Karthi Sivakumar shared their views about EIA 2020 via their twitter handle
                

Tweet of Mr.Suriya Sivakumar

To check Mr.Karthi Sivakumar's tweet check out the link below 

https://twitter.com/Karthi_Offl/status/1288043488035012610?s=20

          And later so many friends shared a link about this draft. So many friends shared a petition and asked us to sign the petition.

          But what is this EIA Act 2020. Most of us will not have a clear idea about this because of the prevailing abnormal Covid 19 circumstances. It doesn't comes under light.

          So in this article, we tried to give an insight about EIA and its impact and for what it was initiated.

What is this Environmental Impact Assessment?

           Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is initiated by the government to ensure environmental protection. 

          Before starting a new plan, policy or project it is important to know it's positive and negative effects on environment so that the companies will be aware of environmental protection while doing a project.

         For this purpose, EIA was initiated. EIA assess the effects of plans, projects and policies on environment and give a report whether they satisfied all fulfilments of EIA.

          EIA applies not only to private companies' projects but also to Government projects such as bridge construction, road construction, laying railroads and so on.

          EIA conducts a survey to the concerned company or Government officials and assess whether their project fulfill EIA's requirements. If so EIA will allow the project to start otherwise the company or government should rectify their project before starting. If they fail to rectify, their project will be rejected.

         It is also helpful for people to quote and argue in the court if they feel that the project that is going to start will affect their environment.

        Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) started in 1960s. In India, EIA started in the year 1978 during the implementation of  river valley projects. In India, it comes under Environment protection act of 1986. EIA became a mandatory process only in 1996. Nearly 100 countries were following EIA as a mandatory practice before starting a new project.

Why environmentalists are opposing EIA act 2020? 

          In India, EIA act's rules and regulations were correctly followed from 1996 to 2004. Still many projects that affect environment in a negative way. This shows that the old EIA regulations are need to be corrected. 

        But the new EIA act of 2020 is even more worse. At least in previous EIA, public and environmental activists will be able to report about a project in the court and the court will take adequate action.

       But in EIA 2020, court will only have authority to impose fine only if a particular policy violates the rules and regulations of EIA. In previous EIA, the company or Government should make sure that the project they going to start fulfills the requirements of EIA before starting. Then only they can start the project.

      But in EIA 2020, a project can start without clearance from EIA. The EIA officials will conduct the study after the project is being started and give report. If there are any discrepancies, the court and the concerned officials will only have the authority to impose fine. 

      This will ultimately leads to the starting of many projects that are harmful to environment. The concerned companies or Government will only pay fine and continue their project. Simply in this EIA 2020 act, consultation from public side will no longer be taken.

      Ministry of Environmental Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) published the draft of EIA in March 12, 2020. Generally, two months time will be given for public to give their feedback if a draft of a new act is published. As due to Covid-19 pandemic, government extended the time for the public to give their feedback about EIA 2020, till June 30. Then the Delhi high court extended the time to give feedback to August 11.

       Based on the feedback received, changes will be made or will be rejected. For this reason, NGOs and Environmentalists are spreading awareness about EIA to the public so that they can voice out for the rejection of EIA 2020.

      That's why EIA 2020, is the hot topic in social media right now. The good thing in this lock down period is that people are more aware of things happening in the country than before. So let's voice out and stop this EIA 2020 act as we have only less time to react.  

      Share this article to as many as possible and spread awareness to people who are not aware of this. 

Kindly  share your views regarding this EIA 2020

Show your opposition by sending mail through the link given below

https://t.co/HVZBaR5nzE

You can also sign a petition to withdraw this act

http://chng.it/mJYhRSZ5

Today's English word

Embolden

This means that giving confidence to do something.

Sentence Usage

In friends movie, Contractor Nesamani embolden apprentices to hit Govalu as he misunderstood Govalu as one of the kidnappers.

Let's all learn together and enlighten others.

Thank you.