The union environment ministry has received nearly 17 lakh comments and suggestions to the draft environment impact assessment (EIA) notification 2020.

11 August 2020 was the last date for submitting objections and suggestions to the draft.

National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), which is controlled by the Centre, will compile and streamline the suggestions. Following this, the final draft will be placed before a committee headed by S R Wate — former director of NEERI — for scrutiny, during which experts from various sectors will participate, said a senior official.

The notification is also being considered in the Delhi high court.

“It will take us some time to consider the issues raised by these comments and suggestions. Letters have gone to the minister (Prakash Javadekar), many have come to me and to other officials. Many of them are repetitive,” said environment secretary RP Gupta.

On 23rd of March, the ‘Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change of India’ (MoEFCC) released the Environmental Impact Assessment Notification 2020 as a replacement to the EIA Notification 2006. The EIA is an essential tool to assess the environmental, societal, and economic impacts of any proposed project.

This caused a stir across the country with several activists, actors and the common public speaking against it.

Several political leaders, such as Jairam Ramesh of the Congress and Aditya Thackrey of Shiv Sena, have asked the Centre to relook the draft EIA and consider the objections made against it.