Reduce eco impact, Ramesh to aviation min

Environment and Forest Minister, Jairam Ramesh, has reportedly told the Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel that impact on the environment will have to be reduced at the proposed sites for the new airport in Mumbai.

Updated on: Aug 28, 2010, 01:31:23 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Environment and Forest Minister, Jairam Ramesh, has reportedly told the Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel that impact on the environment will have to be reduced at the proposed sites for the new airport in Mumbai. Ramesh has also denied the claim that a compromise has been struck over the ministry’s reservations on the proposed new airport site at Navi Mumbai.

“Yes, I met Civil Aviation minister but no compromise has been worked out,” he told Hindustan Times, following television reports that the two ministers have worked out a strategy to develop a new airport at Navi Mumbai.

The compromise formula, as per the reports, was that the design for the airport at Navi Mumbai would be reworked to minimise environmental damage on mangrove plantations.

Ramesh has reportedly told Patel that the impact of the airport and other alternate sites will have to be minimised to get environment clearance.

“All options are still open,” Ramesh said, while referring to the ministry’s Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) decision to seek new environment assessment for 17 alternate sites.

The Civil Aviation ministry had, however, rejected the option of developing the airport at alternative sites stating that airport cannot come up at Kalyan because of security reasons.

Ramesh also made it clear there will be “no short circuiting” of the process to decide on the environment clearance for the airport.

As per the process, the EAC has to decide on the clearance. In its last meeting, the EAC had asked the civil aviation ministry to explore the possibility of developing the airport at alternate sites.

The next EAC meeting is expected in September-October where the project proponents will have to submit reports on possible changes in design. “The EAC will decide after considering the environment reports,” an official said.

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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