Red signals for green laws

Relaxing penalties in environment laws is ill-advised

Since it came to power in 2014, the National Democratic Alliance government has sought to establish itself as a business-friendly regime. One of the key means by which it has tried to fulfil this agenda is loosening environment protection laws. In this context, the latest set of proposals from the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) dilutes the penal provisions in three laws governing environmental protection, and air and water pollution. According to the MoEFCC, the idea is to decriminalise the provisions to remove fear of imprisonment for “simple” violations. The ministry said it was acting on suggestions