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Is the suspected expulsion of Jayanthi Natarajan from the environment portfolio for purportedly halting projects worth Rs 10 lakh crore a step back from the nascent effort made by the UPA government to give teeth to the Ministry of Environment and Forests?
The drive to rid the MoEF off the shackles of puppet ministers began under Jairam Ramesh, who is often credited to have single-handedly put green issues on top of the government’s agenda. No sooner than he did that, Ramesh was booted out in a portfolio reshuffle, plausibly for becoming increasingly assertive, being portrayed in the corporate media as an archenemy of pro-development industrialists and for creating obstacles in giving clearances to dam and mining projects. If the government had hoped Natarajan would go easy on her green activism quotient, it was sadly mistaken.
She is reported to have openly defied cabinet colleagues including Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on the issue of GM crops. Files lay pending for months on end and project deadlines were missed continually. Allegations of ‘rent seeking’ have also been reported and details put out by the Economic Times quoting an internal survey of the Government of India suggest that out of major projects worth Rs 14 lakh crore that sought government help for debottlenecking, the environment ministry under Natarajan was responsible for delays in projects worth over Rs 5 lakh crore.
Allegations of ‘rent seeking’ as well as investor concerns on projects being stuck merely because of laxity and bureaucratic procedure needs further probe. If the latter is indeed true, Natarajan’s exit is positive because it gives out a tough message to ministries procrastinating on files to either join the PM’s zealous drive on clearing hurdles through the Cabinet Committee on Investments or step aside. If the former if true, it reiterates that the age old problem of rampant corruption in government corridors more than the environment or anything else is holding India’s growth to ransom.
But if indeed the delays in clearing projects was on account of genuine environmental concerns, citing eye-popping numbers to validate Natarajan’s exit puts a smokescreen on the complex problem of sustainability that confronts both industry and society at large, as the MoEF tries to strike that tough balance between industrial development led GDP growth and environmental conservation. Often referred to as a puppet ministry, if an effort was indeed being made by the MoEF to introduce greater vigil in the assessment of environmentally damaging projects, ousting an incumbent minister to achieve short term project clearance targets is myopic and detrimental.
“This is not a debate between development and environment. It’s a debate on whether we want to continue running the environment ministry in a lawless fashion,” says Madhav Gadgil, chairman of the contentious Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel. “We have a range of acts directed towards protection of environment, beginning with the 1986 Environment Protection Act, but in pursuit of so called development these laws have been flagrantly violated. The MoEF hasn’t been successful in implementing any of the laws except under Jairam Ramesh where there was some short-lived semblance of lawfulness.”
It is equally a fact however that reconciling with the apparently conflicting aims of kick starting the investment cycle by unclogging the billions of dollars stuck in projects waiting for clearances, and addressing the needs of the environment can be a tough, if not seemingly impossible task. If the government doesn’t do the former, it faces the wrath of foreign investors, ratings agencies and also a collapse of the banking system which is witnessing an alarming rise in non-performing loans as a result of money stuck in unproductive projects. If it compromises on the latter, it risks being accused of perpetrating ‘violence’ against the environment.
Sadly, by ejecting Natarajan the government stands accused of that. Not in the least because Veerappa Moily has been put in charge of the portfolio – a role that will be in direct conflict of interest with his other job as the minister for petroleum, but also because it may not even be successful in pushing through the contentious projects that it wants to, post her ouster.
“This won’t change anything. The ministry is hamstrung by a legal framework of permissions that is so archaic and has gotten so complex through the years, it is impossible to navigate. The entire architecture needs to be changed legislatively. Why isn’t the government attacking the real problem rather than removing ministers to get brownie points?” questions Vinayak Chatterjee, Chairman of Feedback Infrastructure Services, a private advisory & consulting firm.
It is an imperative that the government gets cracking on addressing the real problem rather than posturing with ministerial reshuffles. It is amply clear we can’t let the environment become a barrier to faster economic growth, but neither can India wash its hands off the need for good environmental governance. More than anything else there are financial implications to playing around with nature. Environmental degradation costs India $80 billion or 5.7% of its economy per year according to the World Bank. Moreover if poverty alleviation is, as it should be, the end goal of rapid industrial growth, there isn’t an option to keeping the environment at the forefront of policy along with concerns of industry.
