JAIRAM RAMESH is considered quite effective by environmentalists as far as his job as the minister in charge of protecting environment and forests of the country is concerned. He earned a pat on the back from activists for his decision on Bt Brinjal, scrapping work on two proposed hydel projects on the river Bhagirathi in Uttarakhand, stalling work on Maheshwar Dam in Madhya Pradesh and road projects through forest reserves.
However the year largely saw Ramesh — the central figure in the government’s climate change battle — struggle to balance competing environmental demands. He may not have violated India’s traditional stance on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, but ever since he took over the ministry (which earlier was directly under the Prime Minister) he consistently questioned it. Serious differences with Ramesh on his approach on climate change negotiations also saw the exit of Shyam Saran, the prime minister’s special envoy on climate change and Chandrashekhar Dasgupta, a key negotiator in Saran’s team. Caught in controversies, the good work by Ramesh got lost, whether it was announcing Dolphin as the national aquatic animal or initiating indigenous scientific climate research to determine and monitor health of glaciers after depending all these years on the West for data on glaciers in the country.
Ramesh announced the setting up of the National Institute of Himalayan Glaciology at Dehradun (Uttarakhand). Another step was the Indian Network on Climate Change Assessment (INCCA), a network of scientists to publish peer-reviewed findings on climate change in India.
The ministry can also be credited for setting up of specialised “green benches”. The Parliament recently approved the long-pending National Green Tribunal (NGT) Bill to quickly dispose environmental protection cases. Recently, the Ministry and the Survey of India also launched an initiative to map the hazard line along India’s coast.
Last word: Controversial stand mars good work.
