Environment and Forest Minister Jairam Ramesh, facing criticism from his cabinet colleagues on several issues, has defended himself, saying his ministry was committed to protecting ecological security of the country.

When Ramesh said no to the introduction of Bt Brinjal earlier this year, several ministers including Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar had criticised him. Last week, media reports said that Highway and Transport Minister Kamal Nath had complained to the prime minister that the ministry of environment and forests was withholding the ecological approval to several crucial highway projects.

The prime minister then empowered a special group to take a final decision on the matter.

In reply, Ramesh on Wednesday told the media: “High economic growth can be inclusive only if environment and development go hand-in-hand which will mean saying 'yes' in some cases, 'yes, but…' in some cases and a firm 'no' in some others. This has been recently demonstrated by the recent actions of the MoE&F.”

He also presented a detailed communication, reproduced here:

The environmental and forestry clearances given by the Ministry of Environment & Forests are based on the Environment Protection Act, 1986, the Forest Conservation Act, 1980 and the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. The MOE&F is fully committed to ensuring that these laws are implemented fully in letter and in spirit.

Even so, since May 29th 2009, there has been a determined effort to bring transparency and professionalism in the granting of environmental and forestry clearances. The status of all pending cases is now available with relevant details on the MOE&F website. Environmental appraisal committees have been reconstituted to ensure that there is no conflict of interest. Regular monitoring of pending cases in crucial sectors is taking place with the ministries concerned. This is already having impact.

    * It was at the MOE&F’s suggestion that the Cabinet agreed to approve national highway projects to facilitate detailed project preparation but on the clear condition that no on-site expenditure will be allowed to take place until all environmental and forestry clearances are obtained.

    * 14 strategic defence roads have been given final forest approval, another 11 have been given first-stage approval and a further 10 have been cleared by the Standing Committee of the National Board for Wildlife

    * Nine major coalfields have been taken up for identification of prima facie “go/no go” areas for coal mining from the point of view of forestry clearances.1 The results of this preliminary analysis, done for the first time, have been submitted to the PM. Coal mining projects will get environmental approval based on the ultimate production capacity thereby obviating the need for repeated clearances when expansion takes place.

    * A system of mandatory accreditation of EIA/EMP consultants has been introduced by the MoE&F to improve the quality of impact assessment reports submitted by project proponents.

There are certain points that need to be kept in mind while looking at the question of environmental and forestry clearances.

   1. Environmental clearance is given to the project proponent while forestry clearance is given to the state government in which the project is to come up since it owns the forest land. This is why the two approvals cannot be combined and given at the same time

   2. Forestry clearances are given by the Centre after the cases have been examined by the state government concerned. More often than not, this examination requires consultation and can take time, for perfectly justifiable reasons

   3. The quality of the environmental impact assessments (EIAs) is often so mediocre (sometimes unintelligent cut-and paste jobs) that any responsible committee with integrity has no option but to ask for clarifications adding to the time taken.

   4. The very welcome intervention of the Supreme Court has made the forestry clearance process (and also that of wildlife clearance under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972) very comprehensive and detailed. Had this not been the case, our valuable flora and fauna would have been even more endangered than it is today

   5. The project-by-project clearance approach has meant that certain fragile regions have already reached the limits of their carrying capacity thus now necessitating the need for circumspection and the need for landscape-wide/basin-based approaches.

   6. With the very desirable growth of an active civil society movement on environmental issues, the entire approval process is always under intense public scrutiny. This has further necessitated that the MOE&F take a critical, objective and transparent approach to approvals

   7. Despite the challenges, the MOE&F is efficient in granting most environmental and forestry clearances, with a large majority of cases being cleared within the legally stipulated time available for approval. Most of the cases that take longer time involve complex, often legal and regulatory issues, that are often outside the jurisdiction of the MOE&F.