“The agenda of growth and environment protection on the other is our motto. The coastal road is good and will come up in a few years. Air pollution is mostly due to vehicular pollution and the coastal road will decongest other roads and reduce pollution,” he said.

Javadekar was addressing a meeting of the Indian Merchants’ Chamber. One of the participants questioned Javadekar, saying that the road project would end up bringing more cars on the stretch. The minister said that an integrated transport plan along with the coastal road would encourage more public transport.

He spoke at the session ‘Balancing Environment with Development’.

Janjri Jasani from the Centre for Environmental Research and Education questioned the minister on stressing how his ministry was keen to alter the perception of a ‘roadblock’ and said there were no concrete measures to protect the environment.

Javadekar responded by saying that around Rs 33,000 crore of the Rs 38,000 crore set aside for compensatory forestation for projects will be utilised for ‘greening’ degraded forests.

To ensure less industrial pollution reaching rivers, Javadekar said that around 3,206 critically polluting industries shortlisted in 17 sectors would be mandated to install 24×7 pollutant and discharge monitoring devices.

Javadekar was critical of his predecessors Jairam Ramesh and Jayanthi Natarajan. “I inherited a roadblock, speedblock ministry and made it action-oriented,” he said.