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Say No to proposed EIA amendment

Dear Friends,

On behalf of Campaign for Environmental Justice - India, we request you to sign on an appeal to the Prime Minister of India urging him to direct the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), of which he is incharge, to immediately stop a comprehensive retrograde amendment to the Environment Impact Assessment Notification - 2006. MoEF in a notification issued recently proposes to amend the EIA Notification in such a manner that it will negate the very purpose of the Notification, besides compromising human rights of hundreds of project affected communities and the ecological security of India.

It is striking to note that amendment is proposed at the time of General Elections, and that the beneficiaries are the some of the largest corporate houses involved in mining, petrochemicals, manufacturing, construction, infrastructure development, dam building, etc. All of these sectors are highly polluting and environmentally destructive and the benefit of a weak environmental regime, including exemptions from compliance with significant provisions of environmental regulatory procedures, would help these sectors save thousands of crores in monetary terms alone. In effect therefore, the proposed amendments amount to the extension of a largesse from the State to highly profit making industrial and infrastructure sectors.�

It is well known that corporate houses fund political parties and have consistently demanded and lobbied for a weak environmental clearance regime, including exemptions. This is exactly what is now proposed by the move to amend the EIA Notification (which is anyway very weak).

The Election Commission of India has a Code of Conduct for political parties which requires that a Party in power should not initiate significant shifts in policies, schemes and regulatory practices that may secure benefits for some sectors and amount to the extention of largesse of the State.� The timing of the proposed amendments and the proposed changes in law leave little doubt about the possibility that the UPA Government at the Centre may have initiated these reforms to secure support of benefiting corporates to its party coffers.

The Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh is incharge of MoEF. We have enclosed an appeal to him highlighting our concerns urging him to direct MoEF to immediately announce that the proposed amendments are kept in abeyance till such time a new Government has taken charge at the Centre. This letter is enclosed and is self-explanatory.

We request you to endorse this letter, and also to circulate it amongst various networks for support. We will fax this letter with your endorsements to the Prime Minister of India, and send a copy to all political parties, the Election Commission of India and the media on Monday, 23 March 2009.

You are requested therefore to endorse the letter by noon on Monday. Subsequent endorsements will also be accepted and forwarded appropriately.

You may email your endorsements providing (full name, organisation and address, and optionally a brief comment) to esg@esgindia.org (Please keep the subject line above intact to help us sort email).� You can also sign online and leave comments at: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/eianotification2009

We thank you for your cooperation and support as always.

Yours sincerely,

Leo F. Saldanha, Bhargavi S. Rao, Nandini Chami, Sruthi Subbanna, K. R. Mallesh, Divya Ravindranath
Environment Support Group, Bangalore