Lock, stock and burn: Govt revives checklist against leaks

The Indian Express, 15 March, 2015

*Don’t throw secret papers into waste paper baskets. Tear such papers into small bits and ensure that all the waste papers from your room are collected and burnt before shutting up.
*Don’t fully close the doors of safes, cabinets of cupboards unless they are locked. A closed safe may give the impression that it is locked while actually it is not.
*Don’t discuss secret subjects on the phone which is a public service.
These are some of the 26 instructions on a “confidential” list revived by the NDA government to “safeguard information” and “secure government property and premises” following the alleged leak of official documents from various ministries.
The list is part of a “re-sensitisation” drive launched by the government following a meeting chaired by Cabinet Secretary Ajit Seth in the last week of February of officials from the ministries under the scanner.
As part of this drive, the government is making detailed presentations on the Manual of Departmental Security Instructions 1994 for its senior officers.
Along with the manual, which has been revised several times over the years, the two-page list of Dos and Don’ts —- part of the official security protocol for long —- is being circulated among section officers.
RULES“Though used for training purposes —- for example, by the Postal department and the Defence Headquarters Training Institute during the UPA regime —- these archaic rules were always considered either too obvious or rather impractical. Now the government is serious about full compliance,” said a senior bureaucrat, who did not wish to be identified.
While CISF personnel have already taken over the security of most ministerial premises, where additional CCTV cameras are being installed, the government has barred entry to those without ID cards or prior appointments with joint secretary-level officers and above.
Under the new security regime, all files have to be routed through the e-filing system and the divisional heads need to get the “security and character antecedent verification of outsourced staff as well as manpower deployed by service providing agencies in their buildings done… on priority basis.”
Burning “all security waste papers… daily under adequate supervision” seems to remain the top priority of the government as this figures under both Dos and Don’ts on the “confidential” list.
The government this month widened an investigation into suspected leaks of confidential documents from the oil ministry to include the defence, coal, environment and power ministries.
The scandal erupted in February with the arrest of junior staff suspected of stealing secret documents and selling them to consultants.

MoEF experts red flag six hydel projects, PMO says ‘critical need’

The Indian Express, 11 March, 2015

Told to “place the correct picture” before the Supreme Court on the “critical need” for hydel projects in Uttarakhand, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) first contradicted the recommendations of its own panel, which ruled against six hydel projects, and is now unable to submit it in writing to the court.
The ministry, which was asked by the Supreme Court on December 16 to examine the cumulative and individual status of six of the 24 hydel projects seeking clearance from the court for the upper Ganga region, set up a four-member expert panel on December 30.
At the next hearing on February 17, the ministry said the committee did not find the six hydel projects deficient on procedural and substantive requirements for the clearances issued to them.
Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi told the court that “an affidavit is ready” and he had instructions to state that the six projects “are worthy of clearance”.
This was diametrically opposite to the expert committee’s conclusion that “the six projects may not be taken up as they have potential of causing significant impacts on the bio-diversity, riverine system, wildlife and other fragile eco-systems in the areas where these projects are located due to altered (by 2013 floods) hydrological parameters”.
The ministry neither shared this nor the committee’s other recommendation for a review of the “entire process of according clearances” with the court.
Not satisfied with the oral submission, the court asked the ministry to submit the “ready” affidavit in four days. Until Wednesday, the ministry had not submitted any.
Sources said the ministry is in a spot over instructions issued at a PMO meeting on January 13 — a month after the Environment Ministry told the Supreme Court that dams aggravated the 2013 Uttarakhand flood.
At the meeting, the Environment Ministry was asked to finalise clearance norms by February 15, in time for the February 17 hearing.
It was asked to coordinate with the Power Ministry and the Uttarakhand government because it was “necessary to place the correct picture regarding the critical need of the projects in Uttarakhand for green power and for livelihoods before the court”.
But the Environment Ministry had already formed its expert panel on December 30, comprising Vinod Tare of IIT-Kanpur, V B Mathur of Wildlife Institute of India Brijesh Sikka of NationalRiver Conservation Directorate and Dalel Singh of the NHR.
In its report on February 12, the panel ruled against the six projects — 171 MW Lata-Tapovan of NTPC, 195 MW Kotlibhel-IA of NHPC, 108 MW Jhelum Tamak of THDC, 300 MW Alaknanda of GMR and two sub-25 MW projects of Super Hydro at Bhyundar Ganga and Khirao Ganga. 

Once overruled by the PMO, Tribal Affairs ministry reiterates: Easing forest clearance entirely defeats FRA

The Indian Express, 10 March, 2015

In a last-ditch effort to stop moves that it says will “entirely defeat the purpose” of the Forest Rights Act (FRA), the Ministry of Tribal Affairs has strongly objected to the revised guidelines for forest clearance that the government is in a hurry to notify.
Prepared by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) after a push from the Prime Minister’s Office, the new rules will ease the forest clearance process by limiting powers of the gram sabhas to decide on development projects.
Pointing out that the revised guidelines are “contrary to the law as laid down in the FRA” and “constitute an encroachment upon the judiciary and the legislature”, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs in a seven-page note sent to the Department of Legal Affairs on March 5, said it “cannot agree to the issuance of the MoEF draft as an executive instruction in any form”.
The note is the ministry’s last opportunity to reiterate its stand as the final guidelines will now be cleared by the Law Ministry for the MoEF to notify. As first reported by The Indian Express on February 24, this was decided at a meeting chaired by Nripendra Mishra, principal secretary to the PM, on January 12.
The MoEF sent the draft revised guidelines to the Department of Legal Affairsand Ministry of Tribal Affairson February 17. The revised guidelines sought to delink the statutory processes under the FRA and Forest Conservation Act (FCA), allow panchayats or district councils to decide where gram sabhas have not been constituted, and exempt a rangeof projects in non-Fifth Schedule areas from gram sabha’s consent.
Commenting on the draft, the Ministry of Tribal Affairssaid that laws do not operate in a vacuum and the FRA and FCA cannot be applied without reference to each other.
Arguing that “there is no evidence to show that FRA is resulting in delays for forest clearance”, the note said that compliance with FRA after the Stage II approval for forest clearance — as proposed by the MoEF — will make the decision-making powers of the gram sabha redundant.
The Ministry of Tribal Affairsfurther pointed out that the FRA does not distinguish between Scheduled and non-Scheduled areas and any exemption from application of FRA would be illegal. It also referred to a numberof Supreme Court orders interpreting the FRA as binding precedent — under Article 141 of the Constitution — to point out that violation of these orders will not be legally tenable.
On December 4, 2014, after repeated protestation by the Ministry of Tribal Affairson this issue, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar had written to Tribal AffairsMinister Jual Oram, attaching a draft for comment. On December 28, Oram’s ministry responded with its own guidelines that differed from the MoEF draft on three keyissues: a District Level Committee under FRA, not District Collector, to certify if process of recognition and vesting of forest rights is complete; no exemption to linear projects, and no exemption to projects in areas that houseScheduled Tribes since the FRA also applies to Other Traditional Forest Dwellers.
On January 12, overruling the objections, the PMO asked the MoEF to “formulate a draft guideline delineating the FC (Forest Clearance) process” and send to Department of Legal Affairs“for legal vetting and to MoTA for its views”. The Ministry of Tribal Affairswas told to send its “views directly” to the Department of Legal Affairswhich would finalise the revised guidelines and send to MoEF “for issue”.