The Hindu Business Line : ‘The talk of a divide is largely overdone’

Mr Jairam Ramesh has begun his innings at the Environment Ministry with a pledge to increase transparency and expedite deserving projects. Speaking to Business Line, Mr Ramesh outlined his key priorities.

Excerpts from the interview:

After being Power Minister in the previous Government, how does it feel to be on the other side of the divide?

As far as I’m concerned, there’s no conflict or divide. The talk of a divide is all largely overdone. Sustainable development essentially means integrating ecological concerns into the mainstream economic growth agenda. Even as Power Minister, while it was my responsibility to see that generation capacity is added, it was equally my job to look at the environmental aspect of these projects.

It is all very easy to cite a trade off, but the fact is that sometimes the choice will be in favour of ecological security. An airport in the middle of a mangrove forest or chopping of trees in the Western Ghats for a hydel project are definitely not the way forward towards sustainable growth. So we are setting up an independent Environmental Protection Authority, hopefully by the end of the year, to oversee the process.

What’s going to be the key focus area?

I am aiming at transparency and working within the framework of the law, instead of letting the conflict between development and environment cause unnecessary delays. Some things are staring us in the face… For instance, there is no running away from the fact that we have to use a billion tonnes of coal per year within the next 10 years. Without it, there is no economic future, no power. So the solution lies not in stopping coal use but in finding better ways to use it — thermal power stations using super-critical technologies, coal gasification to curb carbon dioxide emissions.

On the R&R (resettlement and rehabilitation) issue, what’s the way ahead?

A National R&R Bill will be introduced in this Budget session. The R&R issue needs to be tackled well if we are to achieve a sustainable approach to having large-scale projects in the country... A Cabinet note on National Environment Protection Authority is also being worked on. The purpose of this Authority is to strengthen enforcement and monitoring of compliance of environmental statutes and improve environmental planning and management… Besides, a National Green Tribunal, along with benches in different regions, is also being set up to address grievances…

A lot of money has been pumped into river clean-up exercises over the years, with little or no result. In comparison, rivers such as the Rhine and Thames have been cleaned up in Europe. Does the clean-up approach need a change?

Yes, I think there has to be change (in approach)… For 20 years, the Ganga Action Plan has spent Rs 1,200 crore and much of the money went into setting up sewage treatment plants. Most of these are ironically lying idle as the municipalities do not have the money to pay electricity bills. There is nothing to see in terms of actual clean up… What we’ve been doing so far is to spend about Rs 350 crore annually and distribute it among 164 towns for clean-up of rivers. Each town gets a small amount and nothing gets done. Instead of looking at it from a town perspective, we need look at it from a river perspective. The Rhine and the Thames are very good examples of how things can be turned around. The Ganga Basin Authority is a priority with the government and we will start from there…

On climate change, what will be the agenda in the run-up to the Copenhagen meet in December?

India had taken a clear and consistent position that it would, under no circumstances, take on the legally binding emission reduction targets. The Prime Minister has already announced that our per capita emission will never cross that of the developed countries. We have already started implementing the National Action Plan on Climate Change, which has eight major missions and 24 critical initiatives.

How about research on climate change? Does India see itself working in that area?

We need to build scientific capability in the field of climate change within the country as much of the climate change science is being done abroad now… India already has a programme to study climate change, involving 98 institutions and 227 scientists but needs to do more… I’m in touch with scientists of Indian origin abroad, who we are trying to rope in o build scientific capability in this area here. We’re working towards setting up an advisory group of technologists and scientists who are based abroad. The group is being called GANGES — Global Advisory Networking Group on Environmental Sciences.