TN govt forms 12-member panel to study new EIA draft

Tami Nadu government has constituted a 12-member State-level committee to look into all aspects of merits and demerits of the draft Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification, 2020, issued by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.

The EIA is a process to evaluate the likely environmental impacts of a proposed project or development taking into account socio-economic; cultural and human-health impacts. The Centre had proposed the draft EIA 2020 to replace the EIA Notification 2006 and was put in public domain on March 12 for obtaining comments from all stakeholders within a period of 60 days.

On June 30, the Delhi High Court directed the Centre to publish a draft EIA notification 2020 in all 22 official languages for the comments of the State government by August 11.

An order issued by Sandeep Saxena, Additional Chief Secretary to Government, Environment and Forests Department, said that the Chief Minister Edapaddi K Palaniswami during his visit to Tirunelveli district on August 7 announced to constitute a committee to look in to the merits and demerits of the draft EIA notification 2020. Following this, the committee has been constituted with Additional Chief Secretary to Government - Environment and Forest Department being the chairpersons to give recommendations.

Other members in the committee are from Chennai Metropolitan Department Authority; Municipal Administration; Public Works Department; Geology and Mining; CII Tamil Nadu (represented by S Chandramohan, Chairman, CII TN); NGO; National Centre of Sustainable Coastal Management; T Sekar (former member secretary of TNPCB); Thangavelu (former Chairman of State Level EIA Authority) and the Member Secretary of State Level EIA Authority, the Order said.