Your suggestions on draft EIA unfounded: Javadekar tells Jairam Ramesh

Responding to Ramesh through a letter, Javadekar said, "I acknowledge receipt of your letter dated July 25, which was simultaneously released to the press"

A day after senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh raised strong objections to the draft EIA notification, Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar on Sunday termed his suggestions as "unfounded" and based on "misinterpretation".

Javadekar's response came after Ramesh, former environment minister and present chairman of the Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment Forests and Climate Change, wrote to him raising concerns about the draft Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) notification.

In his letter, the Congress leader said the draft EIA reduces public participation in all the steps of the environment clearance process "by lessening the notice period for public hearings and doing away