Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Prakash Javadekar has assured that all valid suggestions and objections raised on the draft Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification 2020 will be considered on merit before finalising it.

In a letter written to Congress leader and former environment and forests minister Jairam Ramesh on Wednesday, Javadekar said his public comments were “premature” as public consultations were still underway and suggestions can be sent up to 120 days from the date of publication of the draft.

He said it was wrong to assume that ex-post facto environmental clearance will be given to the cases involving violation. “The main purpose of this provision is to bring all violators under regulatory regime by imposing heavy penalty,” the Minister said, adding that companies cannot be in perpetual unregulated status.

He said the government was not doing away with EIA in expansion projects. Every project expansion will require submission of Environmental Management Plan and if the expansion is more than 25 per cent in terms of production capacity, then fresh EIA would also be needed. Those projects, where the expansion entails 10 per cent additional production capacity, would require recommendation of the environment appraisal committee, he observed.

Similarly, the draft does not talk about diluting the process of public hearing; instead it is stressing on making it more meaningful, the Minister said.

On increasing the validity of environmental clearance beyond the existing seven years, Javadekar said under the EIA Notification of 2006, projects have a provision to extend the validity for another three years beyond the seven-year-term. “We are proposing to give permission for 10 years at one go so that an entrepreneur need not come to government offices again and again,” he said.