U-turn by Environment ministry at PMO meet, Bhagirathi eco zone faces quiet burial

The Indian Express, 27 April, 2015

Even as Nepal revives memories of the Uttarkashi earthquake and Rahul Gandhi trekked to Kedarnath to heal wounds caused by the devastating flash floods, the Congress government in the state has abandoned work on the much-delayed zonal master plan for the Bhagirathi Eco Sensitive Zone.

The quiet burial came after the NDA government at the Centre in a volte face, decided to review the 2012 notification of 4179.59 sq km in the watershed of the Bhagirathi river between Gomukh and Uttarkashi as a green zone to safeguard it from unplanned growth.

Part of the fragile Himalayan ecosystem, Uttarkashi suffered one of India’s deadliest earthquakes that killed 727 people and affected 3 lakh in 1991. In the last six years, this district has been jolted as many times by quakes of magnitude 4 to 5.1. In 2012 and 2013, flash floods and landslides killed hundreds and left thousands homeless.

Documents accessed by The Indian Express show that days after Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar refused to modify the ESZ notification, the ministry reversed its stand on January 13 at a PMO meeting chaired by Nriprendra Misra, principal secretary to the PM, “to discuss issues relating to Hydro-Electric projects in Uttarakhand”.

At the meeting, the ministry accepted an ESZ cannot be declared without a proposal from the state government after Uttarakhand claimed the state had not been consulted while notifying the Bhagirathi ESZ, which restricted most development projects in the area and impacted livelihoods.

However, when Chief Minister Harish Rawat made the same arguments in a letter to Javadekar in May 2014, the latter assured him the provisions of the 2012 notification in “no way hamper the development aspirations and livelihood options of the local people”. In his reply on December 26, Javadekar also wrote, “My ministry in consultation with the Ministry of Water Resources is preparing minor amendments to the notification. However, consideration of small hydropower projects in this extremely fragile region do not figure [in] the minor amendments.”

The Bhagirathi ESZ was notified on December 18, 2012, after a seriesof natural disasters. But from the very beginning, the state was opposed to notifying around 100 times the area proposed in a July 2011 draft notification that sought only 100 metres on either side of the river as ESZ. It also objected to the ban on hydropower projects above 2 MW since the 2011 draft proposed a ban on only those above 25 MW.

On December 18, 2014, a reluctant Uttarakhand missed the two-year deadline for preparing the Zonal Master Planfor the management of the ESZ. Soon after, in an affidavit submitted to the National Green Tribunal on December 24, the state sought a stay on the implementation of the 2012 notification till it was amended in consultation with the state government.

In the same affidavit, however, the state also assured the tribunal that six proposals were received after expressions of interest for preparing the Zonal Master Planwere sought through advertisements in the media and four of those six parties already made presentations before the monitoring committee of the Bhagirathi ESZ.

The affidavit further claimed that the monitoring committee “also decided to examine whether the Zonal Master Plancould be prepared by a core committee of the government departments with the help of a consortium of national level institutions”.

Four days after Uttarakhand submitted this affidavit, the state cabinet passed a resolution on December 28 to request the Centrefor withdrawal of the December 2012 notification itself. Soon after, a state delegation met key PMO officials and the Environment Ministry agreed to review the 2012 notification. While the issue comes up before the NGT again on April 30, not even a single meeting of the ESZ monitoring committee has been held in 2015.

“Our last meeting was on December 3 when it was decided that work on the Zonal Master Planwould continue. But no meeting of the committee took place since,” said Mallika Bhanot, independent member of the monitoring committee.

Tribal Affairs Ministry refuses to relax norms for Defence projects in border states

The Indian Express, 22 April, 2015

Days after the environment ministry relaxed rules to help create strategic defence infrastructure, the tribal affairs ministry refused to exempt these projects in the border states of north and north-east India from the purview of the Forest Rights Act (FRA).

The decision, conveyed to the defence ministry on February 24, affects at least 35 projects — it involves more than 20,000 acres of forest land — in eight states under the eastern, northern and central commands.

Pointing out that most rights over forests in the Sixth Schedule areas of Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura are vested with the local communities and forests in states like Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and hill areas of Manipur are owned by communities through village councils, the tribal affairs ministry told the defence ministry that the FRA “has no provision to exempt in part or full from the process laid down therein”.

Of the 35 defence projects that involve forest land, 11 are in Arunachal Pradesh, six in Sikkim, five in West Bengal, four each in Assam and Himachal Pradesh, three in Uttarakhand and one each in Mizoram and Tripura (see box).

The tribal affairs ministry’s refusal came after the environment ministry on January 29 granted general approval for diversion of forest land for allsecurity infrastructure projects of the Border Security Force (BSF) and Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) within 5 km of the international border. On February 3, the ministry relaxed norms further to exempt alllinear projects — such as highways — in the border states from the mandatory public hearing.

Earlier, in July 2014, the environment ministry granted general approval for diversion of forest land for allroad and highway projects of the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) within 100 km of the international border. In August, however, the defence ministry asked the environment ministry for further relaxation, including exemption from the purview of FRA, in the border states of north and north-east India.

Arguing that the environment ministry’s July 2014 exemptions alone “may not yield the desired benefit”, the August 29 letter of the defence ministry stated: “The MoEF may kindly consider all infrastructure projects of the armed forces coming up in the border states of north and north east India for general approval.”

Following a series of consultations over the next four months which involved participation of the home ministry, the environment ministry decided to extend general approval to Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) road projects as well and to allstrategic security projects within 5 km of the international border.

On January 12, the environment ministry wrote to the defence ministry, asking it to request the tribal affairs ministry to “issue appropriate advice” on exempting defence projects from FRA purview. Accordingly, the defence ministry wrote to the tribal affairs ministry on January 27.

To speed up infra projects, stay out of wildlife clearance, Govt tells Supreme Court

The Indian Express, 12 April, 2015

The Environment Ministry has approached the Supreme Court to free the process of wildlife clearance for infrastructure projects from the apex court’s monitoring, citing delays due to the “extremely convoluted and timeconsuming” procedure.

The ministry’s Interlocutory Application(IA), signed on April 9, comes nine months after it was first urged by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to “approach the SC to allow state and national boards for wildlife to grant clearance” because of the “huge pendency of infrastructureprojects”.

This move was originally prioritised as an action point at a meeting chaired by Nripendra Misra, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, on July 12 2014.

Subsequently, the issue was taken up a number of timesin review meetings chaired by Misra and in weekly meetings of the government’s ProjectMonitoring Group.

According to Supreme Court orders on November 13, 2000 and May 9, 2002, landin a sanctuary or national park cannot be diverted or non-forest activities undertaken without the court’s specific approval.

In its appeal, the government prayed that both orders be vacated and the decision-making process be permitted to “take place in accordance with the statutory provisions”.

Documents examined by The Indian Express show that the ministry’s appeal appears to have quoted verbatim from the conclusions of the July 12meeting.

Both noted: “The present process for getting wildlife clearance has become extremely convoluted and time consuming as every user agency has to approach local authorities, chief wildlife warden, State Boardfor Wildlife (SBWL), the standing committee of National Boardfor Wildlife (NBWL) and then to seekspecific permission of this Hon’ble Court.”

Claiming that this processhas been causing “time overruns resulting in costescalations”, the appeal lists six such public sectorprojects that suffered delays between 19 to 66 months.

The government’s other argument seekingvacation of the SC orders is that “adequate safeguards are now availableunderthe statutory provisions” of the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972, following an amendment in 2003.

Before the amendment, any alteration of sanctuary or national park boundaries was decided by the legislature of the state concerned. The appeal claimed that “the court’s objective has been complied with in the amendment” that made consultation with SBWL for sanctuaries and the NBWL for national parks mandatory.

Over two decades, the SC has passed a number of orders to monitor the functioning of the executive in relation to the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972.

On November 13 2000, the court directed that “no de-reservation of forest/ sanctuaries/ national parks shall be effected” following which the governmentstarted submitting allsuch proposals for the court’s approval.

On May 9 2002, the court ordered that allproposals of non-forest activities insidesanctuaries be placed before the standing committee of the NBWL (then IndianBoard for Wildlife) for its recommendations before the court’s approval was sought.

Red sanders smuggling: those killed are always woodcutters

The Indian Express, 7 April, 2015

Barring the scale, the encounter killing of 20 red sanders “smugglers” in Andhra Pradesh has not come as a surprise to those watching the illegal industry. Since 2011, such encounters and operations have killed 11 and led to the detention of more than 2,000 — all tribal woodcutters hired by mafia agents from Tamil Nadu.

The timing of the operations reveals a pattern. In 2014, a multi-organisation team led by National Campaign for De-notified Tribes HumanRights (NCDNTHR) probed such killings and detentions and observed:

* If arrested, the local rich in the smuggling racket are sent to the Rajahmundry centralprison, so that they could getbail easily, while the majority of the poor tribal woodcutters are booked underthe charges of murder or attempted murder.

* Fortune of rival smuggling groups depends on changing political equations, and targeted killings of tribal labourers of a rival smuggling group through the STF by the dominant group are meant to destroy the opponent’s supplybase among Tamil tribals who are hired for felling and carryingred sanders.

“Most of those killed are Vanniyars, a denotified tribe at the bottom of the socialhierarchy, while the majority of those detained belong to other tribes. About 300 of them are still in jail since last April,” said Hyderabad-based M Subba Rao, NCDNTHR national convener.

In the name of cracking down on smugglers, say insiders, the politically powerful gangs of the day have taken out members, usually tribal recruits at the lowest rung, of the rival groups. Indeed red sanders encounters do seem to have been timed with shiftsin the state’s political equations since 2011. Consider these:

* A Tamil labourer, named Varadi, was killed in an allegedly fake encounter during the tenure of forest minister Peddireddy Rama Chandra Reddy in 2011.

* After the resignation of Peddireddy in November 2012, another labourer from Tamil Nadu, Murugan, was killed in December 2012.

* Another, named Sambarian Mani, was killed in January 2014, weeks before Kiran Kumar Reddy resigned as chief minister.

* Days before Chandrababu Naidu became chief minister, Vijaykanth, Venkatesh and Siva — allbelow 25, belonging to denotified tribes and neighbours in an interiorvillage near Javadi hills of Tamil Nadu — were killed in May 2014.

* Another five were killed in the forests of Chittoor and Kadapa districts between June 21 and August 6, 2014.

* Subsequently about 2,000 Tamils were arrested from railwaystations and bus stands — rather than crime spots — and branded smugglers and kept in various jails in Nellore, Chittoor and Kadapa districts. Two of them died.

* Last year, the Nellore district jail had about 440 booked in the red sanders case, and of them 236 were booked on the charges of murder and the remaining for attempted murder.

“These tribal woodcutters from Tamil Nadu’s Tiruvannamalai, Salem, Dharamapuri and Villupuram districts traditionally worked in coffee estates and also in sugarcane fields before they were lured by red sander smugglers and their agents. We need independent inquiries into these killings,” said S Anna Durai, Tamil Nadu convener of NCDNTHR.

According to the 2014 report, red sanders smuggling involves four layers of operation. Tribal woodcutters and local carriers/loaders belong to the first rung. At the second stage, transporters operate in connivance with the forest and policedepartments. Next are the exporters who take it out of the country. At the fourth level are the managerswho oversee everything from recruitment to negotiation and report to the political kingpin.

While the woodcutters rarely make more than Rs 10,000 per tree (average 200 kg), the booty fetches between Rs 40-60 lakh per tonne abroad. Last November, the state governmentearned Rs 1,000 crore by auctioning a huge cacheof confiscated red sanders.

A second auction of 3,500 tonnes will be notified soon.

PMO tells Tribal Ministry: Sitting on projects is ‘lack of commitment’

The Indian Express, 6 April, 2015

A standoff between the ministries of tribal affairs and environment and forests over the issue of clearances has stalled three key projects prompting Nripendra Misra, principal secretary to the Prime Minister, to intervene and question the delay.

The projects which are being tracked by the projectmonitoring group (PMG) of the cabinet committee on investment are in three different parts of the country: the 2×500 MW projectof NLC TamilNadu PowerLtd which has a fuel supplyagreement with CoalIndia the 45-km Sivok-Rangpo newline of “national and strategic interest” which will put Sikkim on India’s railwaymap; and the 100 MW Tidong-I hydel projectin Kinnaur district of HimachalPradesh.

These projects had sought forest clearances without meeting allconditions underthe Forest Rights Act (FRA) and were referred to the tribal affairs ministry by the environment and forests ministry. On each occasion, the tribal affairs ministry refused exemption.

DISAGREEMENT

Tribal Affairs Ministry “unable to see the strong rationale” for pushing developmentprojects… “delay speaks volumes of our lack of commitment”.
-Nripendra Misra, PMO

Tribal Affairs “gave legally tenable advice” to MoEF… MoEF has made “judgmental statement” that there is “non-application of mind” at Tribal Affairs…
– Hrushikesh Panda, Tribal Affairs Secy

On March17, Nripendra Misra wrote to tribal affairs secretary Hrushikesh Panda, pointing out that the tribal affairs ministry was “unable to see the strong rationale” for pushing developmentprojects.

“The delay speaks volumes of our lack of commitment,” Misra wrote, seekinga response within three days.
Panda replied the very next day, arguing that his ministry only “gave a legally tenable advice” to the environment and forests ministry which had sought it in the first place.

Referring to a note attached to Misra’s letter, Panda took a swipe at the environment and forests ministry for making a “judgmental statement” that projectswere being stopped by the “non-application of mind of tribal affairs ministry”.

Panda reminded Misra that the environment and forests ministry “does not need the clearance of Ministry of Tribal Affairs for diversion of forest land”.

Earlier, on March 3, coalsecretary Anil Swarup had written to Panda, seekingearly clearance since the first unit of the plantwas “ready for synchronisation with the grid”.

The FRA compliance certificate issued by the district collectorof Thoothukudi in Tamil Nadu for the NTPL project was referred by the environment and forests ministry to the tribal affairs ministry on January 14.

It was pointed out that no mohalla sabha was apparently constituted in the municipalareas where forest landwas to be diverted for the NTPL project.

With the tribal affairs ministry not yielding, the Tamil Nadu governmenthad to constitute a ward committee on March 6. It has since sent its resolution to the centre. The tribal affairs ministry’s view on the legality of the processis awaited.

The Sivok-Rangpo railprojecthas been stuck ever since the tribal affairs ministry red-flagged two certificationsby the Darjeeling district collector— in August and November 2014 — that “gram sabhas have given their consent” to diversion of forest landwith a footnote stating “as there is no elected body at the panchayat level, there is no gram sabha”.

For the Tidong hydel project the PMG wants the forest clearance processto be delinked from FRA requirementsfor laying transmission lines as it requires only the “right of way”. But the tribal affairs ministry has taken a firm stand that the FRA allows no exemption to any category of projects.

Following instructions from the PMO in January, the environment and forests ministry drafted a fresh notification on applicability of the FRA for linear projects. The tribal affairs ministry also placed on record its comments. Now, it is for the department of legal affairs to take a call.

Budget cuts make govt turn to PSUs: Save snow leopard, gharial

The Indian Express, 4 April, 2015

Snow leopards for Rs 35 crore, gharials for Rs 80 crore, whale sharks for Rs 10 crore and black-necked cranes for Rs 5 crore — these are among 14 endangered species put up for corporate sponsorship by the Ministry of Environment and Forests. Between great Indian bustards going for Rs 104.5 crore and olive ridley turtles for a meagre Rs 4.60 crore, the total conservation cost of these species over the next five years is pegged at Rs 400 crore.

Under the scheme — Developing partnerships and funding conservation initiatives under Corporate Social Responsibility — piloted by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), supporting “highly endangered wildlife species and their habitats will not only help corporate groups compensate for their ecological footprints but would also provide them reputational benefits”.

 WII director Dr V B Mathur says Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has already shown interest in adopting the snow leopard, while both Power Grid Corporation of India and Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation are eyeing the most expensive buy, the bustard. In sync with its attachment to rivers, the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation is considering the prospect of investing in the Gangetic dolphin.

The move preceded this year’s cut in budgetary allocation for the ministry’s Integrated Development of Wildlife Habitat (IDWH) scheme under which the country’s 600-odd national parks and sanctuaries — all except tiger reserves — and 16 endangered species are looked after. As the ministry’s budget was slashed by 25 per cent to Rs 1,681 crore, the already meagre allocation for IDWH dipped to just Rs 61.5 crore.

Earlier, Rs 800 crore was earmarked for IDWH under the 11th Plan, but less than half the amount was released during the Plan period. The ministry demanded a four-fold hike under the 12th Plan but was turned down.

“With operating budgets… always being limited”, the ministry and the WII sensed an opportunity when the government notified Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) guidelines in April 2014, identifying “environmental sustainability” as one of the activities to be covered under it.

Eleven PSUs were approached last August, and in February, MoEF secretary Ashok Lavasa wrote to 19 member companies — including Tata, ITC, Rio Tinto, Sesa Sterlite and Wipro — of the India Business & Biodiversity Initiative (IBBI), launched by the CII-ITC Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Development.

The response, however, has been lukewarm. Since last August, only four PSUs have shown some initiative. When contacted, officials at ONGC, the PSU apparently keen to adopt the snow leopard, refused to go on record as “nothing has been finalised yet”.

“We have sent the proposal for snow leopard to ONGC only last week. It is not easy to convince companies to look beyond the traditional CSR fundings in health and education sectors. These are very small amounts as the total CSR budget runs into thousands of crores in India,” said Dr Mathur, one of the brains behind the scheme.

It was Lavasa, claim sources, who expanded the reach of the scheme from PSUs to private companies. “The ministry decides on clearances and the WII is often involved in the evaluation process. So approaching the private sector for funds could be construed as a conflict of interest. We decided to go through IBBI, a platform we created with the CII,” explained a senior MoEF official who did not wish to be named.

Besides species conservation, the scheme also seeks Rs 40 crore for an advanced forensic lab and Rs 15 crore to strengthen India’s research capacity in Antarctica. Already, there are proposals to add more species — such as the Indian saras and the wild buffalo — to the scheme.

“We can always expand the list depending on the response. This initiative is not about covering any specific shortfall. Though the central allocation has come down this year, one expects the states to put in an equal amount. Conservation needs all the support it can get,” said Dr S K Khanduri, IGF-wildlife.

Wildlife passage on NH: Prakash Javadekar junks WII advice, remarks edited out

The Indian Express, 22 March, 2015

In a meeting held on February 13 in Pune, Surface Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar and Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis dismissed the Wildlife Institute of India’s recommendations to build flyovers and underpasses to allow movement of animals across NH-7 in the Pench-Kanha tiger forest landscape, calling these “impractical and un-executable”.

While Gadkari and his ministry vehemently opposed the mitigation plan chalked up by the WII for the four-laning of the highway, Javadekar also discarded the views of the premier institute falling under his own ministry. Soon after, the minutes of the meeting were edited.

The minutes released by Virendra Tiwari, Chief Conservator of Forests, HQ, on February 18 said Javadekar had asked state forest officials “to briefly respond [to] the suggestion of NHAI for reducing the size of the three structures which in his opinion were also unreasonable and unnecessary”.

The revised minutes, issued on February 24 by a desk officer, said the minister had asked state forest officials “to briefly respond [to] the suggestion of NHAI and consider a more practical solution that will be cost effective while serving the purpose of allowing wildlife to cross the highway safely after the four landing of NH-7.”

Tiwari said the revision was “nothing unusual”. “The minutes required some correction… We need to take all the three ministers’ consent,” he said. He refused to confirm if the minutes were issued on February 18 without checking with Javadekar.

Meanwhile, the WII’s mitigation plans have been watered down. The institute had already reduced the scale of its first mitigation plan for a 37-km stretch of NH-7 and slashed its expenditure from Rs 750 crore to Rs 335 crore.

Of the nine structures proposed, the major components — two 1-km-long flyovers and one 300-metre underpass — have come down to four 50-metre underpasses. This will further reduce the cost, to Rs 122 crore.