SHILLONG: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision to strike a balance between environment and growth may just be an eyewash as the Centre seems too inclined to promote growth at the cost of environment.
The BJP government at the Centre is contemplating doing away with the National Green Tribunal, which was set up in 2010 during the second term of the UPA government at the Centre.
Addressing the media in the city on Tuesday, former Union Environment and Forest Minister Jairam Ramesh said the Tribunal, which was set up during his tenure in the ministry (2009-11), is facing the threat of dissolution and that he has petitioned in the Supreme Court against this.
NGT was set up under the National Green Tribunal Act, 2010, for effective monitoring and speedy disposal of cases related to conservation and protection of environment, forests and natural resources.
However, the BJP government at the Centre replaced it with the Finance Act 2017. According to Ramesh, the new Act would reduce the extent of scrutiny.
Ramesh has challenged sections 182, 183, 184 and 185 of the Finance Act, 2017, as well s the rules under Section 184 referred to as the ‘Tribunal, Appellate Tribunal and other Authorities (Qualifications, experience and other conditions of service of members) Rules, 2017.
“Section 184 of the Finance Act, 2017, confers upon the Central Government uncanalised and unguided power to make rules to provide for qualifications, appointments, term of office, salary and allowances, resignation, removal and other terms and condition of service inter alia of the chairperson and other members of the Tribunal, Appellate Tribunal or the case maybe other authorities as specified in the Eighth Schedule of the Act,” Ramesh’s petition says.
The Congress MP terms Section 184 as “vice of excessive delegation”.
The hearing in the case is on Friday.
The Tribunal’s tough stance against Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s ‘Art of Living’ for polluting the Yamuna led to such turn of events and prompted the BJP in power to come down on the green monitoring body, felt Ramesh.
Introspecting on the consequences of such a move, Ramesh said, “We are going through difficult years and the dissolution may have disastrous results.”
To a question raised by Shillong-based environment activist Deepak Laloo, Ramesh, who had earned the moniker ‘green terrorist’ during his tenure as the Environment Minister for tightening the noose around several non-compliant corporate houses, said he saw little hope in saving NGT and the only thing that can “miraculously change the fate of the Tribunal is public outcry against the move”.
On BJP’s sincerity in protecting the environment in the wake of various schemes and missions, the most-hyped being Swachh Bharat, Ramesh said there was no seriousness on the issue.
“Environment is more of a hurdle than concern. A minister will be remembered more for the number of foundations he inaugurated than saving forests,” he said.
But when asked how development and green protection can go hand in hand, the senior leader asserted that it depends on discretion. “One cannot have both and has to take a decision in favour of one or the other if the middle path is not working,” he said and cited the example of the India Gandhi government’s decision to scrap a highway project at Silent Valley in Kerala.
The green tribunal has banned coal mining in Meghalaya and the issue that turned into a contentious one with the MUA-II government facing the wrath of local miners and exporters.
It has also become a political tool for BJP to attract local leaders from the coal belt who believe that the saffron party will rightly solve the issue.
But UDP’s Paul Lyngdoh said the mining imbroglio in the State “is hard to solve”, at least by the present power at the Centre.
Cow slaughter
The senior Congress leader said cow slaughter has been extensively used for political reasons. “There was a demand for banning cow slaughter in the country in 1966 and later a committee was set up to ponder on the issue. However, nothing came out of it,” he recollected.
That the issue would be raked up after five decades only proved that “certain things do not change in the country”.
“Whoever is using the issue now is for political reasons,” Ramesh said.
