Revision summary
EIA 2006 is the notified prior environmental clearance system under the EP Act. Draft EIA 2020 proposed post-facto clearance, shorter and narrower public hearings, and more exemptions. It also sketched more central discretion and lighter post-clearance watch. The 2020 text was a draft for comments, not a replacement gazette. Naming 2020 as enacted EIA law is a factual error.
Model answer
Copper italics in this answer — like this — are the key facts. Each one is unpacked in the Facts & figures rail.
Introduction
EIA in India is a subordinate notification under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. The EIA Notification, 2006 is still the notified procedure for prior environmental clearance. The draft EIA Notification, 2020 was a MoEFCC proposal put out for comment. It was not brought into force as a final gazette replacing 2006. Any comparison is draft versus living law, not old Act versus new Act.
Body
What EIA 2006 actually is
- It is the notified regime: screening, scoping, public consultation, and appraisal, with Category A (MoEFCC and EAC) and Category B (SEIAA and SEAC).
- Prior environmental clearance is required before a listed project is built or expanded, subject to the schedule.
- Public hearing is a defined step for many Category A and B1 projects, with a notice window and a role for the local affected public, not only for files in Delhi.
- Post-clearance compliance is supposed to be monitored; violation is not meant to be a parallel easy door.
How the 2020 draft proposed to differ
- Post-facto (ex-post facto) clearance: the draft sketched a path to regularise projects that had already started without EC, with penalty. That is a break from the 2006 logic of prior clearance. Courts have since treated post-facto environmental clearance with deep suspicion; the draft’s politics were exactly this dilution.
- Public consultation thinned: shorter hearing windows, more project types moved toward B2 (no EIA, no hearing), and wider exemptions for ‘strategic’, border, and some linear or expansion cases. 2006 already had exemptions; the draft widened them.
- Centralisation and discretion: more items pulled toward the Centre; ‘strategic’ labelling could reduce disclosure.
- Compliance self-reporting and longer validity of clearances were proposed, which critics read as weaker watch after the stamp.
- Modernisation and expansion were to face lighter rungs than a new project, raising the risk of cumulative load without a fresh public test.
What did not happen
- The draft drew large public and scientific objection in 2020. No final 2020 EIA notification replaced 2006.
- Clearance practice in the years after still runs on 2006, as amended from time to time, not on a 2020 statute-like code.
- Answer-writers who call ‘EIA 2020’ the law are describing a proposal as if it were notified. That is factually wrong.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD E[EP Act 1986] --> N[EIA Notification 2006 notified] D[Draft EIA 2020] --> P[Post-facto thinner hearings] D --> X[Not brought into force] N --> L[Living clearance law] X[X] --> N[N]
Conclusion
EIA 2006 is the notified prior-clearance and public-hearing system. Draft EIA 2020 proposed post-facto regularisation, thinner hearings, more exemptions, and lighter compliance. It remained a draft. Until a new final notification is gazetted, 2006 is the law to name.
Quick related
Students also ask
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What are the salient features of the Jal Shakti Abhiyan launched by the Government of India for water conservation and water security?
Next question on this syllabus topic (2020 · Q8). View answer →
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Is EIA 2020 the current law?
No. It was a draft. The notified instrument remains the 2006 notification unless and until a new final notification is issued.
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Did 2006 have no exemptions?
It had a schedule and exemptions. The draft fight was over widening B2, strategic labels, and post-facto entry, not over inventing categories from zero.
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