Sonia adviser angers minister

As a nationwide crackdown on environmental violations widens, Tribal Affairs Minister Kanti Lal Bhuria is the latest in a growing list of colleagues to be pitted against Union MoS for Environment Jairam Ramesh's ministry.

Updated on: Aug 22, 2010, 24:18:07 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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As a nationwide crackdown on environmental violations widens, Tribal Affairs Minister Kanti Lal Bhuria is the latest in a growing list of colleagues to be pitted against Union MoS for Environment Jairam Ramesh's ministry.

The man evoking Bhuria's ire is N.C. Saxena, a member of the powerful National Advisory Council (NAC). A confidant of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Saxena is stepping on many toes as he heads several panels probing adherence to environment, forest and tribal-rights laws.

Bhuria's objections: Saxena's prescriptions for better governance to local officials as

the former bureaucrat visits Maoist-hit states, heading a joint committee (created in March) of the environment and tribal affairs ministries on the implementation of the Forest Rights Act, which safeguards tribals living off forest produce.

"The committee during its visits to states is not expected to suggest how the Act is to be implemented,” said Bhuria, a Congressman from Madhya Pradesh, in a letter to Ramesh. "Nor is it expected to make

reference to the ministry as to the instructions that the ministry should communicate to state governments regarding the implementation of the Forest Rights Act.”

The comments against Saxena are a manifestation of the resentment various ministries and ministers feel as Ramesh attempts to enforce India's long-ignored environment, forest and tribal-rights laws "in letter and spirit", as one expert put it, on Gandhi's instructions with the backing of the Prime Minister.

Saxena, who also gave a critique of the Tribal Affairs Ministry to the NAC, believes the forest act's prime objective of granting community rights hasn't been fulfilled. Only 20,000 of 1 lakh villages in tribal areas have been granted such rights.

These failures are directly implicated for the spread of Maoist insurgency across nine states. India has about 100 million tribals with development indices below national average.

A source close to Bhuria said he was "livid" that Saxena was telling state officials how to implement the Act. During his tours of Maoist areas last month, Saxena observed widespread violations. Many officials, much less the tribals, did not even understand the complex Hindi the Act uses.

"Therefore, many provisions are just not being implemented," said a committee member.

Saxena responded, in a letter to Ramesh, saying no state objected to his work.

The environment ministry stood by Saxena and reminded Bhuria that the mandate of Saxena's committee was changed in April 2010, allowing simultaneous reviews for better implementation.

Saxena headed two other committees, which cited forest law violations and asked Ramesh's ministry to stop land acquisition for the R54,000-cr Posco steel plant in Orissa and refuse a mining lease for a bauxite mine for Vedanta's aluminum refinery in the same state.

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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