Political class united in flouting green laws in eco-fragile state

If someone has to be blamed for the ecological disaster that left hundreds killed and thousands stranded in Uttarakhand, it is the Indian political class. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Jun 21, 2013, 24:14:16 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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If someone has to be blamed for the ecological disaster that left hundreds killed and thousands stranded in Uttarakhand, it is the Indian political class.

Both the Congress and BJP had steadily opposed imposition of any strong environment regulation in upper reaches of Uttarakhand saying it would hamper local development. The real story, however, is that the strong hydel lobby - both public and private sector - are opposed to the environment ministry’s bid to declare different valleys as eco-sensitive zones, thereby prohibiting major construction activity in the area.

The ministry in December, 2012 declared the 100km stretch around river Bhagirathi (Ganga in the upper reaches) from Gaumukh to Uttarkashi, covering an area of 4,180 square kilometers, as an eco-sensitive zone. This happened three years after a draft proposal was floated by then environment minister Jairam Ramesh.

The zone prohibited any change in land use from green - such as horticulture, agriculture and tea gardens - to non-green use except for roads, tourism and man-made heritage projects. The notification clearly prohibited river valley, mining, poultry, use of plastic bags and sewage treatment plants.

Till data, the notification, which covers only fringes of upper reaches of Uttarakhand and excludes the present epicenter of devastation - the Alakananda and Mandakini rivers - has not been implemented.

The Uttarakhand state assembly - having Congress and BJP members - unanimously opposed the notification and state chief minister Vijay Bahuguna wrote a three-page letter asking the Centre to scrap the notification.

"The state has a different view on the notification and the chief minister feels it will come in the way of development," environment and forest minister Jayanthi Natarajan said.

"In a democracy, we have to discuss things. However, I believe this is not the time to bring those issues to the fore. I think all of us have to join hands to ensure relief and rescue and to make sure all people are safe," she said.

The notification was fall-out of a decision of a group of ministers headed by then finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, which scrapped the two Central hydel projects on the Bhagirathi river.

They were the Loharinag Pala and Pala Maneri hydel projects and also decided to declare the Bhagirathi river stretch from Gaumukh to Uttarkashi as ecologically sensitive area.

The then BJP government opposed the decision to declare it an eco-sensitive zone and the incumbent Congress government maintained the same stance. "The powerful hydel lobby does not want any obstruction to devastate the hills," said Mallika Bhanot, who is associated with the Save Ganga campaign.

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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