The new incumbent, Jayanthi Natarajan, is a politically astute person who will not see any advantage in backtracking on her predecessor's decisions. Moreover, Mr Ramesh has moved into an area that affects industry even more directly than environment and forests — that is land acquisition. If he brings to this area the same vigour and honesty that he brought to environmental clearances then the adverse impact on the corporate groups that thrive on bending and bypassing the letter and spirit of the law of the land may be even greater.
The belief that honest implementation of established laws on forest rights, forest protection, environmental care and public health is a nuisance at the present stage of India's development is not restricted to a few corrupt industrialists. It is shared by well-meaning civil servants and politicians. Even the Planning Commission, which should be lobbying for all those things the market will tend to forget, clashed with the environment ministry led by Mr Ramesh. Therefore, it is worth stepping beyond personalities to ask whether a conflict between growth and environmental protection really exists and, if so, how it can be best resolved.
Forgive a little autobiographical digression here. I came to policy making from the left of the political spectrum — the part that believed that nothing matters more than accelerating growth. The more radical ones of our tribe relished the idea of forced savings and industrialisation at a hectic pace. What weaned me from this Stalinist vision was my involvement in the almost neoclassical methodology of cost-benefit analysis which, along with the usual market-oriented stuff about international prices, also talked about externalities. And this came during Indira Gandhi's reign — for her, conservation trumped almost everything else. Read the full report here.
Source: Nitin Desai, Business Standard.
