Will you stop production of cars because they pollute? PC to Ramesh

Will you stop production of automobiles because they pollute, is what Home Minister P Chidambaram asked Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh regarding his ministry’s go no-go policy on coal mining at a Group of Ministers meeting. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Mar 15, 2011, 23:27:28 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Will you stop production of automobiles because they pollute, is what Home Minister P Chidambaram asked Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh regarding his ministry’s go no-go policy on coal mining at a Group of Ministers meeting in February.

“Every day country was adding thousands of automobiles which definitely danger the environment. For this, we can take mitigation measures and not stop producing cars,” the Home Minister said.

The Home Minister made these comments while referring to Ramesh’s go-no go policy for coal areas and said the environment ministry’s approach on coal mining was hindering expansion of hydel and nuclear power capabilities. “We have to exploit coal on priority basis to make use of our hydel and nuclear capabilities,” he said.

As per the minutes of the GoM circulated this week, Chidambaram had an advise for Ramesh on a different approach to protect environment from adverse impact of coal mining.

“Ideal approach should be based on likely damage to the environment and it should be classified on three parameters,” he said. The parameters were irreversible damage to environment, reversible damage to environment and compensatory damage.

The go no-go policy is based on straight jacket approach that coal mining should be allowed only in non-dense forest areas, which were about 65% of the total coal bearing areas in 12 coal blocks studied for the policy.

Chidambaram was of the view that the environment ministry’s policy should be based on damage to environment and how it can be mitigated, instead of a blanket ban on coal mining.

Ramesh made it clear at the meeting that his ministry will not give “automatic” clearances to projects and he was willing to re-examine the go no-go policy after objections by other ministries. He also said that the Coal ministry had suggested the policy and not him, as being depicted, and now the same ministry was uncomfortable with it.

The minutes make Ramesh’s isolation at the GoM meeting apparent with most ministers protesting against the policy. The next meeting of the GoM is slated for March 25, when Ramesh is expected to make a presentation on all environmental issues.

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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