Enviro-Health Dimensions of Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Draft Notification 2020 and COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The enviro-health dimensions of the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Draft Notification 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic in India needs dispassionate reading despite its criticism of being medically motivated and relaxing public scrutiny of B2 projects. The EIA law began in 1994 has finished 25 years of its authorisation and work in 2019. The EIA law encouraged excellent administration and ecological equity. The EIA law is in the constant deluge of experimentation, as evident from the 55-time changes and 230 government circulars from 2006-2021. The EIA Notification, 2006, has intensified the disarray and alteration in EIA law arrangement. The salubrious enactment made statutory requirements on the continuous relaxing mode. The worldwide rankings on the working of EIA law in 2020 by Yale University’s Environmental Performance Index positioned India as 168 out of 180 nations. The fundamental qualities of benchmarking contain 32 markers and decade execution patterns. The EIA Notification, 2020 subsumes these concerns by providing public participation, ex-post-facto clearances, and speedy authorisations of environmental projects. The EIA law gets promissory to ecological improvement, contamination control standards and health protection.