What is EIA and Why is it trending?

Withdraw/Ban EIA 2020 draft has been one of the key trending hashtags over the past few days in all social as well as digital media. Apart from a few environmental professionals, most of the commoners are not completely aware of or have zero knowledge of what EIA is and why is it needed for a sustainable future of mankind.

This article is mainly to shower some basic knowledge or idea about the "Environmental Impact Assessment Act" or the so-called EIA.

Environmental Impact Assessment

From the name itself, we can get an idea of what it means. Environment means the surrounding, impact means the result of an action, and of course assessment means a study. It is just the study of what result will outcome based on a proposed action in our environment. 

The technical definition is "Environment Impact Assessment or EIA can be defined as the study to predict the effect of a proposed activity/project on the environment".

Need of EIA

Decision making is an integral part of life. Every single human being would have faced a time in his lifetime "Whether to do a particular thing or not?". If I do this "will I get benefitted or not?". Decision making is applicable to mankind irrespective of age, profession, gender, etc.

EIA is also just a kind of a decision-making tool on whether to proceed with a project or not. Imagine if we are stressing much for a decision which would affect only our lives, how much should we stress for a decision which affects not only the present but also the future survival and sustenance of all living and nonliving things in the surrounding.

That's where EIA comes into play, EIA will clearly evaluate all the positive and negative outcomings of the project by considering in a number of aspects like impact on human lives in both economic as well as health aspects, impact on the available natural resources like air, water, land, and its quality and the impact on living creatures including plants and animals.

EIA in India

EIA came into existence in India with the notification under the Environmental Protection Act, 1986 by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests in the year 1994. It has been amended 12 times from the initial notification in the year 1994. The last notification came in the year 2006.

EIA notification makes it mandatory for projects like mining, thermal power plants, river valley, infrastructure (road, highway, ports, harbours, and airports) to get proper environmental clearance before the inauguration of the project.

EIA Process

The process is almost standard for evaluating most of the projects. It is an eight-step process starting with screening, scoping, impact analysis, mitigation. reporting, review, decision making and ending post monitoring.

EIA studies all the impacts of the project and suggests mitigation measures if the consequences can be somehow diminished and if not rejects the environmental clearance for the project.

Why is it trending now?

As we have seen EIA has already undergone 12 amendments, every amendment was made to strengthen the law enforcement to preserve nature and avoid man-made disasters. However, the Ministry of Environment, Forestry, and Climate Change has proposed a new draft of EIA 2020 for an amendment that is not only failing to strengthen but weakening the existing EIA by classifying certain projects as critical projects and allowing exemption from EIA.

These exempted projects may lead to a large reduction in forest area, endangerment of many species, depletion of natural resources, and pollution on a large scale thus creating man-made disasters, famine, etc.

In order to say in a simple manner, Weakening the EIA is as same as exposing our personal data with malware by disabling the firewall. Both the actions will have the same reaction "Destruction".

To voice out against the misdeed from being performed, every environmentally and socially responsible individual are voicing out their opinion aiming for a single goal "Sustainable Development"

What can be done?

Draft EIA Notification 2020 is in the public domain. Any suggestions and public comments can be sent at the official mail provided for the purpose eia2020-moefcc@gov.in and eia2020-moefcc@gov.in till August 10 2020.

Voice your opinion by sending out a mail to the above-mentioned Email ID and signing the petition in the below-mentioned link

Petition against EIA 2020