 Environment Impact Assessment is the process or study which predicts the effect of a proposed industrial or infrastructural project on the environment. The purpose of EIA is to inform decision makers and the public of the environmental consequences and prevents the proposed activity or project from being approved without proper oversight or taking adverse consequences into account. The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change had released a draft notification on Environment Impact Assessment 2020 and called for responses. Amidst the lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the cutoff date for the responses has been postponed to August 11. The EIA notification 2020 is to replace and supersede EIA notification 2006 and the many amendments issued since then. Experts say that as per the new draft EIA, it was proposed that post-facto project clearance be given to industrial prokets. It means that this will allow industries to set up projects before they get an environmental clearance. Activists worry this could legitimize projects that already violated environmental conditions. Similarly, they also allege many other clauses mentioned in the draft are problematic. They say that it is ethically wrong for the government to make monumental changes that will impact the lives of the people during the pandemic. In this regard, news click spoke to Mr. P. Rajamanikyam, General Secretary of All India People Science Network. Regarding EIA 2020, I wish to state that India is in COVID-19 pandemic. Everybody is fearing of life and livelihood. At this time, the EIA 2020 was released just before the first lockdown, one day before the lockdown. Many of the experts and people are requesting the government to postpone the date of EIA 2020 hearing. But the government is not responding to their people's voices. Because of various pressures from the people and the organization, and also a case in the New Delhi High Court pushed the government to postpone the public opinion for the EIA 2020 to August 11. And the August 11 is approaching very near. So I personally believe that during this pandemic period, the government has done the wrong thing. It is atrocious because many of the departments and the people are not able to give responses to the EIA 2020. So the responses from the people will be very less. And that's why we want to withdraw the EIA 2020 immediately. The draft EIA notification 2020 completely exempts all defense and national security projects and many other projects involving strategic considerations as determined by the government from the need to obtain environmental clearances. A bunch of youth in Chennai have studied the draft and came together to expose the problematic clauses in the draft. They have carried out an online campaign under the banner of Chennai Climate Action Group. News Clicks spoke to one of their coordinators, Ms. Vishwacha. So what we did is like for this EIA related campaign, we drafted a letter and in the letter like we didn't it is not a critic as such but it is a letter which speaks about the threat that is posed for the future generation. Here the future generation are very essential to be taken into consideration before making any important decisions like this because future generations like kids like less than or the youth less than 30 years are going to lead the life and they are the future and if their life was threatened and what is the point of making any decision. So this letter speaks about all these points and we circulated it among all the youth and school children across Tamil Nadu and we were able to mobilize more than 75 youth groups like either formal or informal groups to endorse this letter and also more than 1900 individuals like apart from the groups individuals like school children or the youth less than 30 years of age endorse this letter. So all of us demand for only one thing that is we need a safe future. Safe future in terms of we have the right to have a clean water, air and healthy living that is our main demand and to ensure all these we request the Honorable Minister or the Environment Ministry to consider the future generations into their mind and make a very good decision like we need them to strengthen the already existing environmental policies rather than diluting them. We have the freedom to speak right, we have the right to speak but this particular draft is kind of taking away the rights that we have like the public that has the right to speak. They are one of the stakeholders in all the projects that comes up what I'm trying to say here is the point about the public hearing or the public consultation. For certain projects they are not they have given exemption for EIA and for certain projects EIA even EIA is done like public hearing is being accepted so public as such if even if they are going to get affected they don't have any stake in public hearing and they cannot give their opinion and also if in case public hearing is being conducted for certain projects the duration is being reduced from 30 days to 20 days now like if you just for example if you see now only now in the late half of the July month or now in the August month all media channel all individuals are talking about this EIA but this issue is being there since March 23rd but now only even the educated people or the youngsters who have the technology in their hand speaking about this so what about the people in the remote areas so how should we treat this like should we increase the duration of the public hearing or should we reduce the duration of the public hearing so there comes a red flag so this is one of the issue and another thing the most threatening thing is post facto clearance so post facto clearance like how can one even imagine that like already a building like already an industry or factory would have been established after say one year they are saying that oh mistakenly I have constructed this building in this particular area kindly review our process and trying to give us easy what how does this work actually so like for example I can just hold a degree and say I'm a degree holder and after that shall I write like will I be able to write the exam no so post facto clearance is kind of like what I said so that is really threatening for all of us activists say that the objective of the draft is to be environmentally friendly but instead it is pro-industry and anti-people this notification would cause a landmark shift in the way clearances are obtained in the country industries are required to submit compliance reports twice a year which is now reduced to once a year this can be interpreted as a pro-industry clause that reduces the check on industries and their impact on the environment livelihoods or the people who are dependent of the landscape know how to respect the plan they are also not saying they do not want any industries or anything but if it is threatening to their livelihood that is already existing they rise the questions if the project proponents or the government is able to give proper answer or proper solution for that then people will also accept for what the project is coming up right for example the like the uh starlight or uh lg polymer yeah the uh starlight and all because of people's voice now uh we at least have uh got like able to solve the work that is happening in the starlight right so public participation is very important and they should speak out saying that it is affecting us that obviously the project proponent or the authorities inside the company will not come out and say that we are polluting we are one of the polluters so public's voice is very very important how government is seeing the voices of people is secondary but just because the government is not lending their years we should not be keeping quiet because this is the time that we should oppose because if we are not talking anything now it will be a cakewalk for the people who are deciding these decisions right and a future generation comes and asks like what did you do and we are the answerable person not the decision makers who are sitting in the top level and deciding all these things in madurai district one area is called the sivara kote it was taken for a special economic zone and they wanted to take nearly thousand hectares for their economic activity but people are opposing it this area is a agro ecological area where people are doing agriculture based upon rain water the thousands of people are depending upon this land but a special economic zone was proposed in that area and the people are opposing to that project at that time they conducted the environment impact assessment by the district collector they planned to approve the EIA by bringing people from outside they are not at all cultivating in that land there are people who purchased for the under real estates they were they have been proud to the public hearing and they were supporting the projects but many of the farmers are opposing this is a case of EIA so far conducted in very many areas the authorities have also taken down websites of three national environmental advocacy groups that launched digital campaigns and open letter moments against the notification those who raise questions on the draft EIA are being silenced or attacked in digital spaces a video by a youtuber named Chennai tamarachi became viral when she questioned the draft EIA after a video went viral she had to face personal attacks threats and political pressure especially from bjp leaders and the sang pariva people eat and every season of india is having their right to speak about what government is taking because government is for people right so they have each and every individual should start speaking about it and the people who are trolling they should not solve for individual characteristics they should speak about the concept that the individual spoke so it should be an healthy discussion healthy argument and it shouldn't be subjected for trolling at all this EIA must be circulated up to the panchayat level each panchayat president must know the EIA draft by which they can understand which type of project activity or the industrial activity can be taken in the panchayat area one thing we have to mention here that people are requesting the government to give the EIA draft in their local languages or in the vernacular languages but the government of india in its petition in the karnataka high court said that the official languages english and hindi we will give only in two languages but there are so many languages in india people cannot read english they cannot understand hindi under this situation the karnataka government have given is waiting for the reply from the central government whether to give the EIA in the vernacular language or regional language the central government said that it is a duty of the pollution control board to give in that particular state language it is escaping from that point but it is a duty of the central government in order to get the public opinion you can have english and hindi as languages for translating with the state but instead you have to give EIA 2020 in the vernacular languages to the people then only they can understand it and they can give their responses feedback to the EIA 2020 this is another important point so all india people say network request the government to give the EIA 2020 in local languages and also all india people science network said that in the EIA 2020 violates the indian constitution because as a fundamental duty every citizen has to protect the environment water resources natural resources and also the wildlife etc but the if people resist or conducts struggle against these proposals it is a violation so the fundamental duty of the citizen and also the fundamental duty of the state protect the natural resources is lacking in this EIA 2020