TIRUNELVELI : Citing national interest as the reason, the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF) has denied sharing the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report and Term of Reference (ToR) for the Away From Reactor (AFR), which is to be constructed in Kudankulam, under the Right To Information (RTI) Act, 2005. The AFR would be used to store spent fuel from the nuclear reactors.
Replying after more than 100 days since the RTI application was filed, the CPIO cited Section 8 (1) (a) of the Act for not furnishing the information. The application was filed in July and a first appeal was filed in August since the reply was not provided within the stipulated time. In her order dated August 30, 2019, Shruti Rai Bharadwaj, the first-level appellant authority, had directed the CPIO to furnish the EIA and ToR to the applicant free of cost.
People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy Coordinator SP Udayakumar said, “It is completely unacceptable for the ministry to deny EIA, as this report is purely a public document and the public hearing for the AFR has to be conducted based on this. I received the EIA for the first two reactors of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant Project (KKNPP) through RTI.”
He also said that a case, which he had filed against the Central government for denying Site Evaluation Report of the KKNPP, is pending before the Delhi High Court. “Why should the government hide the information on the nuclear plant if everything is fine?” he added. Environmentalist Nityanand Jayaraman said that EIA was prepared only to be shown to the public and that sharing it under the RTI Act was not against national interest.
RTI Act Section 8 (1) (a)
Section 8 (1) (a) of the RTI Act states that the government can deny to the applicant that information the disclosure of which would “prejudicially affect the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security, strategic, scientific or economic interests of the State, relation with foreign State or lead to incitement of an offence.”