Continuing the last week’s argument (“The reality beyond the numbers”, September 1), can the environmental agenda as implemented by our young and energetic minister take precedence over every other objective of the democratic government of a still poor country? Consider the number of major industrial/infrastructural projects/developments blocked on environmental grounds, some for years — Posco Steel (Orissa), Jindal Power (Chhattisgarh), East Coast Energy, Nagarjuna Construction, Polavaram Dam and JSW Aluminium (Andhra), Navi Mumbai Airport, different projects in Sindhudurg and Ratnagiri districts (Maharashtra), genetically modified seeds, various highways under NHAI, the Ganga Expressway (UP) and so on. Depending on your definition, some (or all of them) would have some adverse impact on the environment and displace some residents. The big question is: should projects be blocked because of such issues on the recommendations of committees with an ideological agenda? In the Posco case, the Orissa government has alleged that the committee collected “manufactured” evidence only from “anti-Posco agitators” (The Indian Express, August 19). Can we afford environmental fundamentalism?
The common strands running through the attitude of the so-called activists and the ministry seems to be their self-righteous claims to virtue; their belief in the benignity of the status quo; their suspicions of investors’ profit motives and the need to justify any change to their own satisfaction. They seem to consider environment a holy cause, as unquestionable in its virtue as motherhood and patriotism. In the process, little weight is given to the possibility that what is acceptable to them is increasingly becoming an enemy of any improvement in the status quo.
We seem to forget that any improvement in the existing state of the economy, of the poor, of the adivasis, will mean change; that any change will not be of equal benefit to everybody. But is that reason enough to reject it? One is happy that environmental lobbies did not exist when man invented agriculture and discovered how to light fires, etc. — both these developments destroyed forests and the living of those occupying them at the time. Is there wisdom in romanticising tribal ways and in arguing that the adivasis’ standards of living need to be left unchanged?
This is not to say that environmental issues have no relevance, but a balance needs to be struck between the adverse impact and the positives. Efforts must be made to mitigate the former without blocking investment, growth and jobs. Yet, such issues seem to have become irrelevant to the environmental activists and the ministry due to the backing of a social agenda advocated by the National Advisory Council (NAC), a body not democratically elected, and responsible only to the Congress president. This makes all others powerless to oppose the way the environmental agenda is being implemented.
The provocation for those thoughts is the rejection of the approval to Vedanta Group for its bauxite project in Orissa.Vedanta did breach some laws (the company spokesman claims otherwise). But then, we have so many laws, rules and regulations dating to the 19th century, and we rarely repeal anything. I am sure I contravene some law when I cross a road in India.
Another ministry seems to be making every effort to block Vedanta’s acquiring controlling interest in the Indian subsidiary of Cairn. After reading dozens of reports and articles, the nature of the objections is still not clear. Sometime back, the Vedanta group was not allowed to exercise its call option on the government-held equity of Hindustan Zinc, a company privatised by the National Democratic Alliance. One wonders whether the root of the problems is not really the legalities or technical issues involved, but something else. Sudeshna Sen in her “Letters from London” (The Economic Times, August 23) reported that, as far as the Cairn issue is concerned “GoI egos are seriously injured, because Bill Gammell and Anil Agarwal didn’t spend days schmoozing in Delhi to tell them of their plans”. Perhaps both should have learnt from India’s most successful post-independent entrepreneur, the late Dhirubhai Ambani, who was never hesitant, as he himself said, of bowing before even the chaprasis in the ministries if that would get his work done. Are we going back to those days?
Last week, India reported GDP growth in Q1 of 2010-11 at 8.8 per cent annualised. If this is to continue, governance will need to improve in many, many areas.
