If environment minister Prakash Javadekar's tweets are anything to go by, India is treading a fine balance between development and environmental protection. For instance, on May 31, shortly after taking charge at Paryavaran Bhawan, he tweeted: "The government believes in #environment and #development, and not environment vs development."
However, a look at the ministry's major decisions between then and now suggests that in the NDA, much like the UPA, the conflict is real. Take a look at the ministry's major decisions. In coal, it has exempted coal mines' expansion projects from public hearings. It has done away with the need for consent from gram sabhas for prospecting in forests. Ministry officials no longer inspect mining projects on less than 100 hectares of land. Mid-sized polluting industries can now operate within 5 km of national parks and sanctuaries — as opposed to the 10 km limit imposed by the Supreme Court.
Under Javadekar, the ministry has also allowed a bunch of industries — like coal tar processing units, etc — to get clearances from generally lax state governments. It has exempted irrigation projects affecting less than 2,000 hectares from environmental clearances and announced that those below 10,000 hectares can be cleared by the state governments.
Recently, it reconstituted the National Board of Wildlife's standing committee such that it no longer has any independent wildlife or ecology experts. And, about a month ago, it changed norms used for defining forests as violate or inviolate — diluting them so as to allow mining over a greater chunk of the country's forests.
What about the ministry's initiatives? There are not many. The ministry is trying to clip the power of the National Green Tribunal. It recently got hauled up by the Supreme Court (SC) for lack of progress on setting up an independent environment authority.
According to an environment lawyer who was in court the day the matter was discussed, the government's counsel told SC that the government was considering the idea. At which point, the SC bench told the government that there was nothing to consider, and that an authority needed to be set up.
Shortly after taking charge, Javadekar announced that the environment ministry's name was being changed to also include climate change. However, since then, there is little to suggest climate change has been integrated into any of the ministry's planning activities.
All this, says Praveen Bhargav, a Bangalorebased environmentalist, is "creating an outcome where the Centre's decisons will eventually come into conf lict with the Supreme Court". That is because, after SC started its Godhavarman hearings, all government decisions impacting the country's forests have to be ratified by the apex court.
Instead of stonewalling science, he says, the government should use science to mitigate impacts of projects. Instead, the country is following a zero sum game on environment.
