Natarajan out, Moily faces conflict in new role

The govt on Saturday put Moily in a precarious position as he would have to discharge two contradictory responsibilities — save environment while helping the cause of fossil fuels. Natarajan resigns in Congress shake-up to prepare for Lok Sabha elections

Updated on: Dec 22, 2013, 09:29:10 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The government on Saturday put Veerappa Moily in a precarious position as he will have to discharge two contradictory responsibilities – save environment while helping the cause of fossil fuels.

As petroleum minister he will be required to give fossil fuel – considered bad for environment – a push. On the other, as new environment and forest minister he will have to reduce dependence on the same.

Moily was asked to take charge after the incumbent minister Jayanthi Natarajan resigned.

The petroleum minister’s choice as in-charge of environment and forest ministry has surprised many. “It is difficult to reconcile that he has been made the environment minister,” said Himanshu Thakkar of South Asia Network for Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRAP).

Read: Jayanthi Natarajan resigns for party work, sets off rejig talk

Moily will be expected to fast track project clearances in the next few months, which the government felt had slowed down during Natarajan’s tenure.

Natarajan had resisted the moves from the PMO to dramatically change project approval guidelines but simplified some of the rules. She had differences with PMO on India’s stand on climate change and did not succumb to Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar for lifting ban on testing of new genetically modified crops. However, no new environment policy was initiated during her tenure.

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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