A tricky endeavour: India's environment issues

There was an urgent need for someone to look into the environment issues that were holding up development projects. It is hoped that the solutions that will be recommended by the high-level committee headed by former Cabinet Secretary TSR Subramanian, formed to suggest ways to remove environmental bottlenecks, will be successful. It is a tricky endeavour to marry the demands of development with the concerns of Mother Nature, but there is no reason why one should develop at the cost of the other. There has to be a way to have both issues addressed amicably as far as held-up projects are concerned.

The Manmohan Singh government made no effort to even try to resolve the issues as each minister concerned thought his portfolio was his fiefdom and the ministries involved, particularly the then environment ministers, never thought of getting all concerned ministries together to find a solution. The result was that 35 mega projects with investment of over Rs 40,000 crore, which had achieved financial closure, could not take off for want of environmental approval. There are reportedly several more projects stuck for want of such clearance and crores of rupees invested in these are lying idle, ending up as non-performing assets with banks.

While the Subramanian Committee will in the next two months look into the five environmental laws and suggest amendments to various acts, it is hoped that the government, too, comes out with a policy for future infrastructure projects. India has vast amounts of arid, unused land. Perhaps these could be mapped out and considered for project development sites.