Environmentalists have said that the Environment Protection Bill-2075, presented by Minister for Forest and Environment Shakti Bahadur Basnet at the Federal Parliament on May 20, 2019, should be revised immediately, claiming that the proposed legislation was wrong and unclear.
Environmentalist Batu Krishna Upreti has said that many points of the bill should be revised if the government wants to implement the proposed bill.
Talking to Hakahaki, he said, “Terms like strategic environment assessment, survey and evaluation, among others, mentioned in the bill are unclear as they are different from themselves.”
Saying that the bill has stated the proposer should himself/herself carry out the environment impact assessment, Upreti said the bill must be corrected as the government itself should conduct the environment impact assessment.
In addition to that, he said that the fine imposed on those who do not get the environment impact assessment report approved from the concerned authority or work against the approved report is too high.
Upreti said that the bill has proposed a fine of Rs 500,000, Rs 1 million and Rs 5 million to those who do not get the environment survey report, Initial Environmental Examination and Environment Impact Assessment reports approved from the concerned authority. He said that the fine is more than the needed.
