MoEF committee opens Western Ghats for industrial development

A committee on Western Ghats has paved the way for industrial development in a sustainable manner in one of the world’s finest bio-diversity hotspots and a formula for the environment ministry to lift a ban on commercial activity in the region, Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Apr 17, 2013, 18:51:43 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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A committee on Western Ghats has paved the way for industrial development in a sustainable manner in one of the world’s finest bio-diversity hotspots and a formula for the environment ministry to lift a ban on commercial activity in the region.

A committee headed by Planning Commission member K Kasturirangan will submit the report to the environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan on Wednesday almost eight months after it was constituted to examine Madhav Gadgil report on Western Ghats.

The Gagdil committee had suggested that no new major industrial units should be allowed in the Western Ghats which has irked the environment ministry, the state governments and the industry lobby.

The Kerala government had even filed a petition with the National Green Tribunal (NGT) seeking lifting of the ban on commercial activities in Western Ghats saying it was hampering economic growth of the state.

“Needless to notice that this is a matter of some urgency and it is expected from the MoEF to take expeditious steps to finalise acceptance or otherwise of Gadgil Committee Report or any other Committee Report,” the NGT said in its order earlier this month.

The government, thereafter, asked the Kasturirangan committee to complete its work and submit a report by April 15. Sources said the committee after detailed deliberations with stakeholders in Kerala, Karnataka and Maharashtra has suggested a middle-path which allows industries to come up in Western Ghats but in an ecologically friendly manner.

“We believe that saying no to industries there would be grave injustice to around 5 crore people who live inside Western Ghats,” said a committee member, requesting anonymity. “But the industries will have to come up in a way that does not impact local biodiversity”.

Sources said that the committee has divided the entire topography of Western Ghats into different zones depending on its ecological importance. In not so ecologically sensitive areas, commercial activities with some restrictions would be allowed, the committee has said. But, it has opted for a strict no in ecologically sensitive areas such as those close to protected areas.

The committee has suggested a formula for considering the projects and has also listed restrictions for carrying out commercial activities. It has also given its view on a large number of hydro-electricity projects proposed in region by different state governments.

Once the report is officially submitted the environment ministry is expected to take a formal view in the next few days and inform about its course of action to the NGT. An advance copy of the report was given to ministry officials on Monday.

The Western Ghat region runs for about 1,600 kilometres in the states of Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The Western Ghats hills cover around 160,000 sq kilometres and are called Great Escarpment of India.

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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