National green tribunal soon

The ministry of environment and forests has accepted the recommendation of a parliamentary panel to set up a new watchdog called the National Green Tribunal (NGT) to control carbon emissions and pollution, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Jan 25, 2010, 23:47:42 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The ministry of environment and forests has accepted the recommendation of a parliamentary panel to set up a new watchdog called the National Green Tribunal (NGT) to control carbon emissions and pollution.

Though the state and central pollution control boards are already engaged in monitoring and reducing pollution, the NGT will accept and probe complaints from citizens against alleged polluters.

The ministry expects Parliament to clear the revised draft of the bill in the budget session slated for end February.

Like the pollution control boards, the tribunal will have the power to fine erring industries. But it will also have the authority to shut down the industry if it turns habitual offender — a decision that can be challenged in the Supreme Court.

The ministry has agreed to insert a new section in the bill on the principles to be applied in the functioning of the tribunal. “It will give the tribunal the power to reject an approval to a project which it considers to be unsustainable,” a senior environment ministry official said. “Unsustainable growth will be defined in the rules to be notified once the bill is passed by the Parliament”.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said at the Copenhagen summit that India will adopt the path of low carbon growth.

The Planning Commission has constituted an expert group of recommend low carbon roadmap for economic growth of India.

Once the low carbon road map is incorporated in the 12th five-year plan, a ministry official said the tribunal would be a watchdog for its implementation.

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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