Green ministry to get Dr Singh’s prescription

In a bid to end the turf war within the Cabinet over environmental clearances, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is set to prescribe a new reform package to be adopted by the environment ministry headed by Jairam Ramesh. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Jun 2, 2011, 02:32:21 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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In a bid to end the turf war within the Cabinet over environmental clearances, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is set to prescribe a new reform package to be adopted by the environment ministry headed by Jairam Ramesh.

Coal minister Shriprakash Jaiswal and power minister Sushil Kumar Shinde had accused Ramesh’s ministry of creating bottlenecks, causing delays in projects, thereby impacting performance of the two key sectors for India’s economic growth.

The government constituted a Group of Ministers (GoM) headed by finance minister Pranab Mukerjee to sort out the differences but seeing not much headway even after two meetings, the PM has decided to call a meeting next week.

In a background note for a meeting, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has stipulated a 10 point reform package to fasten environment clearances and enhance production of coal and increase power generation. Growth in both the sectors has been much less than the target stipulated in the 11th five year plan.

“MoEF (Ministry of Environment and Forest) should adhere to the specified time limits of 150 days for fresh forest clearance and 150 days for renewal cases,” says the note from the PMO circulated for the meeting.

Normally, it takes two to five years to get forest and environmental clearances for projects. This has resulted in coal production growth falling to 5.1 % in 2011-12 from 7.4 % in 2009-10.

Environmental restrictions have also forced the government to downsize coal production growth to 7.8% in the 11th five year plan, against the original target of 9.5 %.

Another issue which is likely to be discussed at the meeting to be attended by finance minister Pranab Mukerjee, Ramesh, Jaiswal and Shinde, is the delay being caused in approving projects in forest areas due to the Forest Rights Act.

The environment ministry in 2009 had decided that no project in forest areas would be approved until provisions of the Act -- related to consent of locals -- are met. According to the note, it takes a very long time to hold public hearings to seek approval of the local people for getting a project approved and there should be a mechanism to reduce time gap in holding such hearings.

The note also says that there was a need to review the moratorium imposed in coal bearing areas under the environment ministry’s Comprehensive Environment Pollution Index (CEPI).

The index covered seven major coalfields, causing production loss of 39 million tonnes in 2011-12. The ministry has already lifted the moratorium in most of these coal blocks.

The PMO has also expressed concern over slow acquisition of land for setting up power plants and coal blocks and failure of railways to produce enough wagons to keep pace with increase in production.

A decision regarding incentives to the state governments to hasten land acquisition and granting no objection certificates for setting up projects is likely to be taken at the meeting.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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