Can new minister Prakash Javadekar ensure environment comes first?

Prakash Javadekar, the new minister for environment and forests, has his task cut out. He must come up with a model that strikes a balance between environment and growth. The great folly of China: A lesson for India

Updated on: Jun 5, 2014, 02:44:17 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Prakash Javadekar, the new Minister for Environment and Forests, has his task cut out. He must come up with a developmental model that strikes a balance between environment and growth. The need for such a model is paramount at a time when the talk is all about the economy and growth.

With Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s emphasis on economic growth coupled with his earlier criticism of the MoEF and Javadekar’s repeated assertions about “speedy clearances” for big-ticket projects, environmentalists worry that the new government’s growth agenda will force heavy environmental costs on the country.

Javadekar indeed faces a few challenges.

The record of environmental protection under the Congress-led UPA government is chequered. Despite the brouhaha over the ecologically-fragile Western Ghats, considered a natural heritage, the plans to protect it are still on paper. “I am saddened that lobbies of builders and miners are able to stall any measure to protect the Western Ghats,” said Madhav Gadgil, who headed an expert panel on the Western Ghats.

Read:The great folly of China: A lesson for India

The state of the environment in India is dismal too. Only two of 250 Indian cities have healthy air. Underground water from Punjab to Assam, including central India, is contaminated and one-third of the water in Indian rivers is not fit even for bathing.

A Lancet study in 2013 said that bad environment is the sixth big killer in the world and claims more lives than road accidents, resulting in death of 3.2 million people in India and its neighbourhood.

“Little has been done to check the rise in air pollution,” said Anumita Roy Choudhury of the Centre for Science and Environment. The government has continued with incentives to polluting fossil fuels, she added.

Most of mining or industrial zones in India are regarded as a health hazard with norms remaining on paper.

Javadekar will have to balance the PM’s growth agenda with the country’s environmental concerns; lift the veil of secrecy over approvals and reduce the discretion that his ministry now enjoys. A more inclusive, simple and transparent approval system for projects, one that also penalises environmental defaulters, is needed.

“It’s the PM who is the real power and an agenda. He’s the person, not so much Javadekar,” said noted Mumbai-based conservationist Bittu Sahgal.

Himanshu Thakkar of South Asian Network for Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP) asked Javadekar to apply Modi’s call for “transparency, accountability and participation” in his ministry.

“Modi’s 10-point agenda provides scope to the MoEF to make governance compliant with environmental norms but the job is tougher than Javadekar thinks. He has to restore people’s faith in norms,” Thakkar said.

While many environmentalists do not doubt Javadekar’s ability to evolve the much-needed “environment first” policy, there are questions over the freedom he enjoys in a dispensation focused on economic growth. Will PM Modi allow him a free hand?

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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