Over the last few weeks, you must have read a lot about why the #DraftEIA2020 is horrible for our environment. Today, I analyzed over 48,000 clearance proposals that were approved/pending approval by the @moefcc and here's a gist of the results: #WithdrawEIA2020

As you already know, environmental clearances are organized by the @moefcc as 'Environmental', 'Forests' and 'Wildlife'. I was ONLY able to obtain the 'Forest' associated clearances as an excel file and after cleaning of the data..

..you will see that the @moefcc has organized the data as pre-2014 and post-2014. One wonders why(?!), but let's dig into the KEY results, which should provide you some clarity.

Between 1975 and 2014, 84.68% of proposals submitted to the @moefcc were approved or pending to be approved. Over 21,63,215 hectares of forests were approved / pending approval to be cleared. #WithdrawEIA2020

Between 2014 and 2020, 99.3% of proposals submitted to the @moefcc were approved or pending to be approved. Over 14,82,247 hectares of forests were approved/pending approval to be cleared. #WithdrawEIA2020

Prior to 2014, majority of forest land was approved towards encroachments and mining associated projects

Post 2014, majority of forest land was approved towards mining projects #WithdrawEIA2020

Let's take a look at it year-wise. Prior to 2014, large chunks of forested land were approved for clearing in the years 1984, 1989, 1995 and 2006 (Not sure if there is an association with political changes?)

Post 2014, large chunks of forested land were approved for clearing in the year 2016. Notice, that the amount of forest area approved for clearing in 2016 was more than double the amount of forest area approved for clearing in 2006 alone. This is alarming to say the least.

What about state-wise loss of forest land? Well, prior to 2014, a large area of forests were approved/pending to be cleared in Madhya Pradesh followed by Arunachal Pradesh - two states that possess an astounding level of biodiversity.

Post 2014, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are stated to lose the most chunks of forest land. #WithdrawEIA2020

The analysis suggests that there has been a significant increase in the rate of approval of environmental clearances for the forest category alone since 2014 (from 84% to 99.3%). In other words, the rate of rejection for proposals since 2014 is less than 1%! #WithdrawEIA2020

In addition, you will notice that the proportion of area stated to be cleared since 2014 is over 68% of what was stated to be cleared between 1975 and 2014. #WithdrawEIA2020

All of the analyses, along with the raw data, figures and associated scripts are available here: https://github.com/vjjan91/WithdrawEIA2020

Please feel free to edit/share/carry out your own analysis.

Further analysis to follow (with the help of @pratikunterwegs )