SC panel slams Rajasthan govt, orders mining ban around Sariska

The Indian Express, 27 October, 2014

The central empowered committee of the Supreme Court has asked the Rajasthan government to immediately stop mining activities allowed around Sariska in “blatant violation” of the court’s orders and name the officers responsible so that “appropriate action” can be taken against them.
The decision to allow mining activities within one kilometre of the Sariska tiger reserve and Jamua Ramgarh sanctuary was taken at a meeting chaired by then acting chief secretary of Rajasthan C S Rajan on December 4, three days after the Assembly polls. “I do not recall that file. I can’t comment as I am not privy to the developments in this issue since last year,” Rajan told The Indian Express.

According to the forest department, there are 84 mines within one kilometre of Sariska tiger reserve and Jamua Ramgarh sanctuary.

While barring mining around national parks and sanctuaries, the SC, in its August 2006 order, ruled that as an interim measure a one-kilometre radius be maintained as a safety zone. This April, the apex court’s order in the Goa mining case made it clear that the 2006 order “has not been varied subsequently nor any orders made regarding Jamua Ramgarh sanctuary” and that “the order passed by this court saying that there will be no mining activity within one kilometre safety zone around national park or wildlife sanctuary has to be enforced”.

Referring to the two rulings, the SC panel sent a letter to the Rajasthan government on October 21, pointing out that the state, in blatant violation of the apex court’s directions, permitted mining close to national parks and sanctuaries by reducing the safety zone limit from one kilometre to 100 metres and sought the names of the officials who gave the go-ahead. A copy of the letter has been accessed by The Indian Express.

The effort to sidestep the SC’s 2006 order began in 2008 when the Rajasthan mines department referred to a 2003 communication of the central empowered committee that had recommended resumption of mining only after the boundary of Jamua Ramgarh sanctuary was demarcated on the ground. Claiming that the demarcation was complete, the state permitted mining outside the periphery of 100 metres of the sanctuary.

In 2011, when Rajasthan prepared a draft notification for eco-sensitive zones (ESZ) around its national parks and sanctuaries, it stuck to a 100-metre safety zone in the mining areas around Sariska. While the ESZ proposal has been under the SC’s consideration, the mining department, in January 2013, again referred to the 2003 CEC recommendation to justify allowing mining outside 100 metres of the sanctuary. However, a decision on the issue was put on hold in March 2013.

In December 2013, the government decided to withdraw the ban imposed by the state forest department in March 2012 and grant “consent to operate” to all mines falling beyond 100 metres of the sanctuary boundary. Other than Rajan, officials who cleared the decision included former chief secretary Rajiv Mehrishi, former mining secretary Sudhansh Pant and additional chief secretary (forest) O P Meena.

3 government agencies, NGO unite to save wildlife passages along Indo-Nepal border road

The Indian Express, 21 October, 2014

At a time when green clearances for border infrastructure projects are being fast-tracked, a strategic road on the Indo-Nepal border is set to go the extra mile to save forests and wildlife of the 810-km-long trans-boundary Terai Arc landscape.

The Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) and the Uttar Pradesh Public Works Department have joined hands with the state Forest Department to draw up a conservation plan which involves elevating road stretches at 16 sites — a total of 31 km will be elevated — and realigning three stretches to secure wildlife movement between India and Nepal.

B D Sharma, Director General of the SSB, told The Indian Express: “We support conservation and share the collective concerns of the stakeholders.”

Sources said the proposed changes to the border road plan will increase the project cost by 20-30 per cent though the actual figure will be known only after the detailed project reports (DPRs) are finalised.

Conceived during the term of the first UPA government, the 961-km road from Uttarakhand to Bihar will connect all SSB border outposts. In 2010, the Ministry of Home Affairs cleared the 640-km UP stretch with a budget of Rs 1,621 crore.

Work is set to begin in 12 segments of the road that do not involve forest land. The remaining 16 segments cut through the Dudhwa national park, three sanctuaries and three forest divisions, home to a rich population of globally endangered wildlife including tigers, elephants, rhinos and swamp deer.

The original road alignment would have made it a physical barrier, blocking movement of animals. To avoid habitat fragmentation and delay in project implementation, all parties concerned — user SSB, builder PWD, regulator Forest Department and environmental groups WWF-India and WWF-Nepal — came together in 2013 to find a solution.

S P Saxena, Chief Engineer of the Uttar Pradesh PWD, said: “This road is a must for the country’s security and these forests and animals are our national asset. We have agreed on a set of measures though these will be expensive.”

Two options were considered for the passage of animals — an elevated road with underpasses for animals and a natural animal overpass mounted on the road. The SSB ruled out the second option as a security threat since this would have created tunnels.

The PWD then suggested the “substantially costlier” option of elevated roads with animal underpasses 6 metre high and 30 metre wide, spacious enough for elephants.

Avinash Chandra, IG, SSB Frontier HQ, Lucknow, said the SSB wanted smooth connectivity to all its border posts and that has been ensured while finalising the realignments.

Rupak De, Chief Wildlife Warden, Uttar Pradesh, said: “It was important for different interest groups to sit together and find a middle ground. We have to finalise site-specific details and then set up a joint monitoring committee to ensure compliance during construction.”

Dipankar Ghose, Director, Species and Landscapes, WWF-India, is cautiously optimistic: “The conservation benefits justify additional costs and we hope financial considerations will not come in the way of this landmark consensus.”

“Also, India is financing a similar road project in Nepal that will run close and almost parallel to this road. Unless the two governments come together to incorporate similar measures in that project, all the good work on the Indian side may not be enough to secure this landscape,” he said.

Officer hounded by both Congress and BJP gets CBI’s support

The Indian Express, 16 October, 2014

The CBI has sought permission of the Supreme Court to take over investigation into alleged violation of forest and wildlife laws in Haryana under the watch of the Bhupinder Singh Hooda government.

The probe agency has filed an affidavit to the effect while responding to a Supreme Court notice on a criminal writ petition filed in September 2012 by whistleblower Sanjiv Chaturvedi, an Indian Forest Service Officer who accused the Haryana government of harassing him for uncovering alleged forest scams running into crores of rupees.

“CBI herein seeks kind indulgence of this Hon’ble Court to pass necessary order qua the Respondent No 2 — CBI for taking over the investigation of the matter,” stated the affidavit filed on October 10 by Tarun Gauba, SP, CBI, Anti-Corruption Branch, Chandigarh. The matter will come up for hearing in the second week of November.

Now on deputation to the Union Health Ministry, Chaturvedi was removed recently as AIIMS Chief Vigilance Officer by Health Minister Harsh Vardhan. This came after BJP MP J P Nadda demanded his ouster. The row over his removal prompted Prime Minister Narendra Modi to seek a report from the Health Ministry.

Since 2007, Chaturvedi has locked horns with the Haryana government, raking up alleged cases of corruption and violation of laws. It took five years, two presidential interventions and an inquiry by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) to revoke the suspension order and chargesheet that the state slapped on Chaturvedi.

In March 2012, the Centre recommended a CBI probe into the charges he had levelled.

But the state government, citing a note by the Department of Personnel and Training which stated that the Centre had no jurisdiction to intervene, said an inquiry conducted by the MoEF was “ultra vires of their powers and… devoid of any force of law”.

Chaturvedi moved the Supreme Court which sent notices to the Cabinet Secretariat, the state government and the CBI in November 2012.

By April 2013, the Centre and the state filed their affidavits, the former standing by its recommendation for a CBI probe, the latter opposing it. In a parallel move, the Haryana government moved the High Court this April, challenging the Centre’s jurisdiction.

UPA’s tribal panel red-flags policy, NDA keeps it under wraps

The Indian Express, 9 October, 2014

* Amend the new Land Acquisition Act to safeguard tribal land and disallow acquisition by a non-tribal, including private companies.

* Make gram sabha consent mandatory for acquisition of land, even by the government for its own use.

* Introduce penalties to prevent deliberate flouting of the Forest Rights Act, such as (through) exception to linear projects, and (through) decisions of the Cabinet Committee on Investment.

* Appoint a judicial commission to investigate cases of ‘Naxal offences’ filed against tribals and their supporters.

These are some of the key recommendations of the high-level committee constituted by the UPA to study the socio-economic, health and educational status of tribal communities, and to “identify areas of intervention by government” and “suggest policy initiatives”. The NDA government has been sitting on the report for four months now.

Set up in August 2013 in line with the Sachar Committee, the seven-member panel chaired by Virginius Xaxa, a member of the UPA’s National Advisory Council, submitted its report on May 29, three days after the Narendra Modi Cabinet took oath. Sources in the Ministry of Tribal Affairs said the report was forwarded to the Prime Minister’s Office in the second week of July and the PMO sent it back to the ministry in August.

Since then, the Tribal Affairs Ministry has been tightlipped about it. Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram told The Indian Express, which has accessed the report, that “the HLC (high-level committee) report is still under consideration”. He refused to say if his ministry had received any specific instruction from the PMO.

“When I met the minister in August, I was told the government was studying our report. I wrote to the ministry three weeks ago but I am yet to hear from them,” Xaxa said.

Tribal Affairs Secretary Hrushikesh Panda was the member-secretary of the Xaxa committee and contributed one chapter to the report. Dr Usha Ramanathan, Dr Joseph Bara, Dr K K Mishra, Dr Abhay Bang and Sunita Basant were the other members.

The government’s dilemma, say ministry sources, is over certain observations and recommendations in the report that challenge the policy push to clear bottlenecks and road blocks in land acquisition for development projects, mining, large dams etc.

The thrust of the panel’s recommendations:

Land acquisition

* Prevent all kinds of tribal land alienation and restore alienated land to tribal owners as per the PESA — Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act — and confirmatory Acts by states.

* Halt measures of institutions such as the Cabinet Committee on Investment that pursue priorities in direct breach of law.

* Limit exercise of ‘eminent domain’ and definition of ‘public purpose’.

* Review the practice of signing MoUs with companies, that takes away the neutrality of the State.

* Curb government agencies acquiring land to transfer it to private companies for “public purpose”. The public-private partnership mode is simply a backdoor method of alienating land in violation of the provision restricting transfer of tribal land to non-tribals in Scheduled Areas.

* Government officials should not be seen as negotiators on behalf of project authorities.

* Government must have the mandate to return unutilised tribal land with it or PSUs, or use the same for resettlement of displaced tribals. The suggestion of the Vijay Kelkar committee (2012) that “unutilised and underutilised land resources” be used for “raising resources” to “finance infrastructure needs” is against the purpose and intent of the land acquisition law.

* Stop forthwith the move to notify rural areas as urban areas in order to nullify PESA provisions.

Mining

* Amend the Coal-Bearing Areas (Acquisition and Development) Act, 1957, to provide for return of land to original land holders post-mining.
* States must adopt the amended Andhra Pradesh Scheduled Areas Land Transfer Regulation, 1959, to facilitate Registered Scheduled Tribe Cooperative Societies taking up mining activities. Minerals in Scheduled Areas should be exploited only by tribals.

Large dams

* Large dams have harmed tribals. Evolve strategy for water-harvesting structures on various small and large water sources, including big rivers.
* Development projects lead to influx of outsiders to tribal areas. Don’t allow reduction of areas declared Scheduled further.

Gram Sabhas

* Cases of consent of gram sabhas being fraudulently obtained should face penalties, and such projects should not be allowed to proceed.
* Gram sabhas should be empowered to restore alienated land pending a long legal battle, to discourage a prospective non-tribal buyer.
* Public policies should learn from the experience of Niyamgiri and adverse lessons of Salwa Judum.

Grassroots movements & Naxalism

* State should engage with grassroots movements against exploitation of tribals instead of crushing them.
* There is no legal basis for terming anything a “Naxal offence”. Many are charged in areas where there is resistance to projects, and the acquittal rate is “extraordinarily high”, leading to the belief that law is being used as a tool to suppress dissent. Appoint a judicial commission to investigate cases filed against tribals and their supporters.

6 years, 2 rejections later, India’s largest hydro project cleared

PMO steps in, MoEF makes FAC clears Dibang hydel 

The Indian Express, 24 September, 2014

Six years after Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister laid its foundation stone and twice denied environmental clearance, the 3000 MW Dibang hydel project in Arunachal Pradesh has been cleared by the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), subject to a reduction in the dam height by 20 m from the originally envisaged 288 m.

This clearance for India’s largest hydro project and the world’s tallest concrete gravity dam came after a September 3 letter from Nripendra Mishra, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, to the Environment Secretary to “clear the project expeditiously” as per the decision of the Cabinet Committee on investment.

This despite the fact that on August 28, the MoEF wrote to the Arunachal Pradesh government rejecting the proposal for diverting more than 45 sq km of forest land to National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) for the project.

A day after Mishra’s letter, the Ministry revived the project by writing to the “project proponent that sensitivity analysis of reduction of dam height up to 40 m may please be submitted for further consideration”.

Incidentally, of the six FAC members whose meeting ended today, four were also part of the panel that had unanimously rejected the project in April 2014. It is not immediately clear if any of the six members registered any dissent to the clearance.

The 16,000-crore Dibang Multipurpose Project envisages a 288-metre-high dam that will submerge 40 sq km, with the reservoir extending to 43 km in Dibang river and its many tributaries. The project was rejected twice by the FAC – the original proposal in 2013 and a revised proposal with a 10-metre reduction in dam height this April.

According to a ministry note, NHPC held that it was “not in a position to reduce the height of the dam any further, as it would significantly affect power generation.” The project was first submitted for forest clearance to the MoEF in August 2011. After repeated site inspections by local forest authorities and much deliberation, the project was first rejected in July 2013 by the FAC on the ground that the ecological and social costs of diverting such a vast tract of forest land which is a major source of livelihood for the state’s tribal population would far outweigh the benefits likely to accrue from the project.

In August 2013, it was decided in a meeting between Power and Environment secretaries that the user agency would explore the possibility of reducing the requirement of forest land and a revised proposal would be submitted for forest clearance. In December 2013, the issue was discussed in the Cabinet Committee on Investment which decided that the MoEF “may grant the requisite clearance for diversion of forest land expeditiously”.

In February 2014, the Arunachal Pradesh government resubmitted the proposal by cutting the requirement of forest land from 5057 to 4578 hectare, a reduction of less than 9%. This new plan would reduce the power generation capacity by 2.3% and require felling of 3.24 lakh trees instead of 3.55 lakh estimated in the original proposal.

The FAC, however, rejected the revised proposal in April 2014, saying such a marginal reduction in the requirement of forest land would not reduce the adverse impact on such a biodiversity-rich, mature forest eco-system to make the project environmentally as well as socio-economically viable in the forest-dependent tribal society of Arunachal Pradesh.

Accordingly, the MoEF wrote to the state government on August 28 that “the ministry, after examining the recommendations of the FAC, has rejected the proposal”. The Power Secretary, however, had already written to the Environment Secretary in June to review the FAC’s decision and accord Stage-I forest clearance to the project.

The project was also discussed at a meeting attended by Ministers and Secretaries of Mine, Steel, Coal and Environment ministries the same month. On June 24, the Power Ministry submitted a two-page report on the implications of a 20-m reduction in dam height.

In the margins, a hush hush recall to Beijing

The Indian Express, 19 September, 2014

A day before President Xi Jinping’s grand ceremonial entry into Ahmedabad, there was an unceremonious exit — in his Embassy in New Delhi.

In a highly unusual departure ahead of a state visit, Beijing quietly recalled its ambassador to New Delhi, Wei Wei, without saying where he was headed.

Wei Wei was replaced by Le Yucheng, China’s ambassador to Kazakhstan, barely 20 months after he took charge of the mission here.

Reached by The Indian Express for comment, Chinese embassy spokesperson Xie Liyan said: “I have no information.”

The sudden exit has left diplomatic circles guessing, some suggesting that Wei Wei was recalled to face “charges” in an “old” case, others saying it was another unexplained recall to Beijing. Sources said that plans to get  Wei Wei out were in place late last month and could be related to the current crackdown against some top officials in the party and government.

Ma Jisheng, China’s Ambassador to Iceland from 2012 until January this year, and his wife, Zhong Yue, left Reykjavik suddenly and are now said to be in Chinese custody. In this case, too, Beijing remained mum.

On September 16, a day before Xi Jinping set out for India, state-run news agency Xinhua quoted a press release from the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) to announce that Le Yucheng had replaced Wei Wei. Le Yucheng served as Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2011 to 2013 before moving to Kazakhstan.

A career diplomat and a law post-graduate, Wei Wei served as ambassador to Zimbabwe, Kenya, Ethiopia, Brunei and Singapore before being sent to India in January 2013.

Wei’s predecessor Zhang Yan had served for four years in India and was appointed Executive Director of the Asia-Europe Foundation after his stint in New Delhi.

On foreign fund trail, Karnataka asks NGOs for agitation records

The Indian Express, 14 September, 2014

Karnataka’s Congress government has asked all NGOs in the state to provide details of the source and utilisation of funds received from abroad, and of the NGOs’ “involvement in agitations during the last five years”.

A detailed 33-point checklist prepared by the Internal Security Department (ISD) of the state police also seeks information on the NGOs’ “role in development”, and on their involvement in issues concerning forests, wildlife, tribal communities, and e-waste in Bangalore.

On July 10, Congress MLA and former Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar claimed in the Karnataka assembly that since 2006, NGOs in the state had received Rs 1,069 crore from abroad, and that many were using the money to stall or disrupt developmental activities such as nuclear, hydroelectricity and irrigation projects.

A month before Kumar’s intervention in the assembly, The Indian Express had first reported on a dossier that the Intelligence Bureau had submitted to the PMO on June 3, in which it had claimed that disruptions caused by NGOs was impacting GDP growth to the tune of “2-3 per cent per annum”.

Kumar, who cited intelligence sources for his information, also alleged that conservationist Dr Ullas Karanth had become a “tiger expert” after “having killed 13 tigers” in the Nagarhole tiger reserve.

Kumar was strongly backed by K G Bopaiah of the BJP, also a former Speaker of the assembly, who alleged that several NGOs in his home district of Coorg were “making money” in the name of tribal welfare. Congress MLA from Tarikere (Chikmagalur), G H Srinivasa, too alleged “malpractices” by NGOs in his constituency.

In response, Home Minister K J George announced that the state police ISD would investigate the funding of all NGOs for possible violations of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act. He promised to table the ISD’s report in the next session of the assembly.

The police, however, seem to have gone further in their scrutiny of the NGOs. Besides the routine questions on foreign funding, expenditure and audits, the ISD has sought detailed information on:

# Participation by NGOs in agitations over the last five years

# Role of NGOs in development

# Activities of NGOs in Coorg and Chikmagalur

# Role of tiger expert Ullas Karanth

# NGOs involved with issues of women’s protection, the forest department, wildlife board, evacuation/rehabilitation of tribals, devdasi children and Bangalore-based IT companies generating e-waste

# Investigation/inquiry by the CBI on NGOs’ activities

An official in the ISD claimed the form had gone out to the NGOs by mistake. “It was meant for the ISD’s internal use, and listed the areas we would focus our probe on. Only financial details were to be sought but, somehow, the entire list was sent out to some NGOs,” the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.

ISD head Amar K Pandey, ADGP, Karnataka Police, however, confirmed that the scope of the probe extended beyond the NGOs’ financial dealings. “Our mandate comes from the legislature, and we have sought information (from the NGOs) on the issues raised in the assembly debate. It is up to the NGOs how much they will disclose, say, about participating in agitations or a certain individual’s role. Our investigation is on,” Pandey said.

Praveen Bharghav of Wildlife First, a Bangalore-based NGO that does not accept foreign or government funding, said, “Under the Constitution, NGOs and citizens have wide-ranging rights and freedom to peacefully campaign against government policy and decisions, including petitioning courts. While NGOs do have to comply with regulations on funding, they cannot be intimidated on the pretext of financial scrutiny.

Some NGOs in Kodagu and Chikmagalur, including Wildlife First, have been relentlessly fighting corrupt officials and other vested interests involved in mining, tree felling etc., exposing losses of several hundred crores to the exchequer.”

Bopaiah told The Sunday Express that he was not aware of the information sought by the state government. “I supported Ramesh Kumar’s call for a probe after he furnished some documents in the assembly suggesting wrongdoings by certain NGOs,” he said.

Kumar said he could not comment immediately. “I raised the issue based on media reports and some homework in July. I am travelling, and need some time to look up those facts again before commenting,” he said.

Home minister K J George could not be reached despite repeated attempts. Ullas Karanth declined to comment.

The six minds that will look afresh at India's 5 green laws

The Indian Express, 12 September, 2014

The government has handpicked three civil servants, a judge and a lawyer for a six-member committee that will review and draft amendments to the five key laws that protect India’s environment, forest, wildlife, air and water. The “high level committee” has just two months to do this while the MoEF has given “stakeholders” a month and 1,000 characters each to send in their inputs.

The chairman of the panel is T S R Subramanian, former cabinet secretary who recently led a group of former civil servants at the Supreme Court seeking administrative reforms. A student of mathematics and economics, he will lend his administrative experience and expertise to the panel.

Of the two other IAS officers in the panel, one is Vishwanath N Anand, former MoEF secretary (1997-2000). His post-retirement tenure at the National Environment Appellate Authority (NEAA) as vice chairman during 2002-2005 was described by the Delhi High Court as “a one-man show” in the absence of a chairman and three technical members of the authority.

Very few appeals were admitted by Anand during his three-and-a-half-year stint at NEAA. In the Lohardang Pala case, he drew sharp criticism from the Delhi High Court for “adopting a very hyper-technical approach in rejecting the petitions” and overlooking “that these petitioners deserve to be heard on merits”. The court quashed Anand’s order and reinstated the appeal.

Anand studied economics, history and psychology and attended a two-week management course at IIM-Ahmedabad in 1970. He also did a four-month course on technology transfer at Sussex in 1976.

The other IAS member is an ex-officio secretary in the panel. Bishwajit Sinha, a joint secretary at the MoEF, is from the Kerala cadre and was the personal secretary of Dayanidhi Maran in the union textile ministry before serving as additional resident commissioner at Delhi’s Kerala House. Sinha is a student of geography and has successfully completed two one-week courses on social policy and governance and urban development since 2011.

A second ex-officio secretary in the panel is from Gujarat. Hardik Shah, member-secretary of GPCB, is a Giorgio Ruffolo research fellow in the sustainability science program at Harvard. He is credited with bringing down the annual number of PILs over pollution from over 50 to a dozen since 2010 and reducing the time taken by GPCB to issue no-objection certificates to industries from 140 to 80 days. A case filed by slain RTI activist Amit Jethwa challenging his appointment as GPCB member-secretary was disposed of after Jethwa’s death by the Gujarat High Court.

The other two members of the panel bring the legal perspective. Justice A K Srivastava retired from Delhi High Court in 1999. An MA from Lucknow University, he is secretary general of the Association of Retired Judges of Supreme Court and High Courts of India. He is a regular speaker on environmental issues at Lucknow’s City Montessori School.

There is also K N Bhat, senior SC lawyer and former additional solicitor general of India, who has been in the news all through the Lokpal controversy. He represented “Ram Lalla” as senior counsel in the Ayodhya litigation in Allahabad High Court.

“You have to ask the ministry about the composition (of the committee) because I was not consulted,” T S R Subramanian told The Indian Express. “But I think the ministry was very careful in its selection as this is a contentious issue that is bound to stoke passions one way or the other. While I agree that the time limit is quite short, we don’t need to review entire laws but the relevant areas and it should be doable.”

11 environmental disasters Narendra Modi blessed in his first 100 days

QUARTZ, 26 August, 2014

We get it: India reposed faith in a leader who promised achhe din–”good times,” good governance, transparency, development, jobs, jobs, jobs.

Now nobody can argue that prime minister Narendra Modi does not mean business. So his government has gone about eliminating the policy paralyses that many claimed ailed the previous regime. This meant dismantling roadblocks that hamper economic growth. But what also happens to be under fire: laws and rules that safeguard India’s environment, forests, wildlife, and tribal rights.

Consider what all the new government has achieved (or undermined, depending on which side of the growth-versus-green debate one stands) in just about three months:

• Environmental and forest clearances have been delinked to allow work on linear projects, such as highways, on non-forest land without waiting for approvals for the stretches that require forest land. Defence projects get priority along China borders up to 100km from the Line of Actual Control in the sensitive eco zones of the higher Himalayas. The government has decided to soften some rules in the Forest Rights Act and Forest Conservation Act to step up economic activities in Naxal-affected states which account for some of the country’s best forests and the majority of our tribal population.
• The height of the Narmada dam will be raised. Irrigation projects requiring 2,000-10,000 hectares are now exempt from the scrutiny of the Centre and can be cleared by state governments. Those requiring less than 2,000 hectares will require no green clearance at all. Separation of power generation components from irrigation projects has allowed promoters to project smaller requirement of land, making clearance easier.
• Changes in the pollution classification now allow mid-sized polluting industries to operate within five km of national parks and sanctuaries (instead of the 10-km restrictive limit ordered by the Supreme Court).
• Ban lifted on new industries in critically polluted industrial areas, such as Gujarat’s Vapi. Pollution index-based moratoriums were lifted and a review of the index has been ordered. Norms for coal tar processing, sand mining, paper pulp industries, etc. were eased.
• National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) reconstituted by slashing the number of independent members from 15 to just three. This truncated NBWL cleared most of the 140 projects before it on August 12. On August 25, the Supreme Court questioned the Centre’s move, ruling that “any decision taken by it (NBWL) shall not be given effect to till further orders”.
• The process of reviewing the National Green Tribunal Act to reduce the judicial tribunal to an administrative one has been initiated. Headed by a retired Supreme Court judge or a high court chief justice, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) hears all first challenges to environmental and forest clearances. “Laws keep changing,” Modi’s environment minister Prakash Javadekar has famously justified.
• The new government has also diluted the Forest Rights Act that requires the consent of the local tribal population for diverting forestland. Instead of gram sabhas (village councils) certifying that their rights had been settled and that they had consented to projects, the district administrations have now been asked to do the same. This exercise must be completed in 60 days, irrespective of the number of project-affected villages or the complication of the process. Moreover, prospecting for minerals in forests are now exempt from having to acquire the consent of local gram sabhas or settling tribal rights.
• No public hearing for coal mines below 16 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) that want to increase output by up to 50% and those above 16 mtpa wanting to expand by up to five mtpa. Instead of individual clearances, now mines can seek approvals in clusters.
• To turn the clock back, the new government is considering as many as 19 amendments to the new Land Acquisition Act. These include dilution of the local consent requirement for public-private-partnership projects, removal of the social impact assessment requirement, delinking compensation for land from market value, relaxing the time limit for completing acquisition, not returning unutilised lands to the original owners, giving states overriding discretionary powers, etc.
• The Ken-Betwa river-linking project that will drown more than 40 sq km of the Panna tiger reserve has been revived.
• The new government also approved field trials of 21 genetically modified (GM) crops, including rice, wheat and maize (beforeputting it on hold under pressure from the RSS).

To be fair, the process of undermining green concerns to facilitate unbridled growth was initiated by the previous regime. For whatever little ground he stood, the rhetorical Jairam Ramesh was kicked out of the environment ministry and even his more pliant successor Jayanthi Natarajan had to make way soon for Veerappa Moily. The oil minister cleared more than 100 big-ticket projects during his short stint at the environment ministry. With Modi watching over his shoulders, Javadekar has already eclipsed Moily’s grand feat, in less than three months.

1

The prime minister, of course, has the mandate. He won on the promise of nationwide development along the lines of the Gujarat model. As the Yamuna in Delhi or the Ganga in Varanasi gets artificial facelifts like the Sabarmati in Ahmedabad, one could possibly blame ignorance for selling concrete riverfronts as the cure for choking rivers. But for good times’ sake, will India be able to rationalize embracing Vapi—among the world’s most polluted places—as the model of growth?

CIC prods PMO on Haryana whistleblower’s case

For two years, state govt has been citing a DoPT note to stall CBI probe into forest scams. IFS officer seeks info.

The Indian Express, 8 August, 2014

For more than two years, the Haryana government has been citing a note issued by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) to prevent a CBI probe into multi-crore forestry scams and other illegalities, allegations that go all the way up to Chief Minister B S Hooda’s office.

After IFS officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi, who blew the whistle on the scams, moved the Central Information Commission (CIC) with questions on the note and its legality, the CIC on May 20 set the PMO a seven-day deadline to come clean on the note. On July 30, the CIC issued a notice to the PMO for noncompliance of that order.

The note contends that the Centre has no jurisdiction to intervene if states violate central Acts or harass whistleblowers belonging to the All India Services and, therefore, an inquiry conducted by the Ministry of Environment and Forests was “ultra vires of their powers and.devoid of any force of law”.

The MoEF had conducted its inquiry in 2010. In December 2011, the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) advised the MoEF “to take up the matter of registration of FIR with the state government and subsequent transfer of the case to the CBI”, confirming that the agency was ready to probe the cases.

Earlier in 2011, Chaturvedi wrote to the PMO seeking a CBI probe. The file was referred to the DoPT, which in February 2012 wrote the confidential note to the PMO.

On the CVC’s prodding, when the MoEF asked Haryana in March 2012 to file FIRs and entrust the matter to the CBI, the state government used the note to stonewall the ministry and counter the opposition in the assembly. The note has remained the state’s key defence since Chaturvedi moved the Supreme Court in November 2012 seeking a CBI probe. Then, in April 2014, the Hooda government moved the high court against the Centre on the strength of the same note, questioning the MoEF’s authority to probe such matters.

While the confidential note was meant for the PMO, M M Joshi, a serving IFS officer in Haryana and a prime accused in the scams and violations, filed an RTI application a week after it was issued. In three working days, the DoPT handed Joshi the note, which was third-party information, without inviting objections from Chaturvedi, which is mandatory under Section 11(1) of the RTI Act.
Armed with the note, Joshi moved the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) against the whistleblower in March 2012. The DoPT was made a party in the case but it did not submit its opinion in the tribunal. After one-and-a-half years, the case was dismissed in August 2013 by the principal bench of the CAT.

The delay

When Chaturvedi challenged the legality of the note, the PMO in May 2012 asked DoPT for a clarification. It took 17 months and six reminders before the DoPT defended the note in September 2013 while admitting that the Department of Legal Affairs did not “specifically comment” on the key issue of the Centre’s jurisdiction.

The PMO wrote back, asking for specific comments on the legality of the MoEF inquiry and the recommendation for a CBI probe. Ten months on, the DoPT is yet to reply. Contacted repeatedly, Dr Jitendra Singh, MoS, DoPT, refused to explain the delay.

In October 2013, Chaturvedi filed an application under the RTI Act, seeking the minutes of the meetings between the PMO and DoPT officials and action-taken reports on his case so that he could initiate legal proceedings against the officials concerned for “manufacturing and leaking a blatantly anti-constitutional opinion”. He also sought to know if the DoPT note was approved by the cabinet minister concerned (prime minister himself).

The First Appellate Authority directed that the information be provided to Chaturvedi by November 25, 2013. Instead, the PMO wrote to the MoEF that the PMO “cannot enter into a communication with individual members of the services” and that the MoEF should take suitable action against the officer for any “further breach of established procedure”.

Chaturvedi wrote again to the prime minister in March 2014, before approaching the CIC. On May 20, chief information commissioner Sushma Singh ruled that the information sought under the RTI was “disclosable” and set a week’s deadline. The new government took over on May 26 but the PMO maintained its silence. Two months on, the Commission issued the latest notice, asking the PMO to furnish a compliance report within three weeks.

While UPA-2 dragged its feet, a number of MPs including the CPM’s Basudeb Acharia and the BJP’s Rama Devi wrote to then prime minister Manmohan Singh for a CBI probe. Last month, it was BJP MP and the party’s national executive member Udit Raj’s turn to write to Dr Jitender Singh. Pointing out that “the officers who manufactured this anti-constitutional opinion under political pressure are still continuing in your department”, Raj urged the minister to ensure that “the said opinion is withdrawn” and “accountability is fixed.for its unauthorised leakage”.

Chaturvedi refused to comment. Since 2007, he has been at the receiving end after raising several allegations  of corruption and violation of laws. It took seven years, four presidential interventions and an MoEF inquiry to revoke the suspension order and chargesheet slapped on Chaturvedi by the state. In 2012, he moved out of Haryana on a deputation to the health ministry.

Moily flagged MoEF Secy’s ‘self-posting’ as NBA chairman, Javadekar clears it

Moily proposed, then disposed citing conflict of interest

The Indian Express, 5 August, 2014

Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar has cleared the appointment of Union Environment Secretary Dr V Rajagopalan as chairman of the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) even though his predecessor M Veerappa Moily had flagged conflict of interest in the selection process, whereby Rajagopalan virtually oversaw his own appointment.

A 1978-batch IAS officer of Uttar Pradesh cadre, Dr Rajagopalan belongs to Tamil Nadu and is due to retire on August 31. The NBA is based in Chennai and its chairman’s post is of the rank of secretary to the Government of India.

Having initially approved Dr Rajagopalan’s selection as the next NBA chairman on May 5, Moily had called the file back. His detailed file noting (which has been accessed by The Indian Express) dated May 15 raised four key objections:

As per DoPT rules, the search-and-selection committee should have recommended a panel of names for selection to the government. Instead, it recommended, without citing any reason, only Dr Rajagopalan’s name for the job. Seven out of 38 applicants were interviewed by the selection panel.

* As per the provisions of the Biodiversity Act 2002, the post of the NBA chairman should be occupied by a person of eminence who is an expert in the field and merely being a retired bureaucrat may not fit the bill. For the record, Dr Rajagopalan is an MTech from IIT Madras and a PhD on air pollution modelling from Lucknow University.

* Certain changes were made in the eligibility criteria to favour retired government officials. The advertisement seeking applications for the post of NBA chairman issued on October 4, 2013, demanded “30 years of experience in dealing with issues of science and social sciences, with at least 5 years of experience of working in the central/ state government at senior level including heading government institutions”. The ministry’s 2011 advertisement for the same post asked for 20-25 years of experience.

* Although then environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan had wanted a panel of names for the chairman of the search-and-selection committee, Dr Rajagopalan later suggested Dr K Kasturirangan’s name to Moily and got it approved. “However, at that time, I was not aware that the Secretary himself will be one of the applicants,” wrote Moily on the file. “Therefore, completion of the selection process with the Secretary at the helm of the affairs has created a situation of conflict of interest. I feel the whole issue should be reviewed and a fresh process for appointment maybe initiated.”

Both Javadekar and Dr Rajagopalan did not respond to emails and phone calls.

Following Javadekar’s approval, Dr Rajagopalan’s selection as NBA chairman is now awaiting the nod of the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet, now comprising the Prime Minister and Home Minister.

Last October, the ministry had raised eyebrows by seeking applications for the NBA chairman’s post 10 months before the incumbent was to demit office. However, Dr Balakrishna Pisupati, the only expert on genetics (plant biotechnology) to have ever been appointed as NBA chairman, resigned in February. Sources claim Dr Pisupati was under pressure to step down before his three-year tenure ended this August. Hem Pande, additional secretary, MoEF, is holding temporary charge as NBA chairman till August 11.

The selection committee shortlisted seven out of 38 applicants on April 1 and interviewed them on April 29. “While all major decisions were on hold due to the model code of conduct during the Lok Sabha polls, these meetings were conducted with exceptional urgency,” recalled a senior MoEF official who refused to be named.

The NBA is an autonomous body formed in 2003 under the Biological Diversity Act, 2002, to regulate and advise the government on matters of conservation, sustainable use of biological resources and fair, equitable sharing of benefits.

Now, accidents rival poaching as key threat to leopards in India

Figures from Karnataka show that for every three leopards poached, two come under vehicular traffic. And few of these killer roads pass through sanctuaries or national parks.

FirstPost, 2 August, 2014

While reptiles and amphibians are the most affected by traffic,
the risk to slow-breeding large mammals are often much bigger.
Image: HS Basavanna

Poaching, destruction of habitat and revenge killing by farmers and herdsmen are the major threats our wildlife face across the country. Now add to these another growing menace: roads and railway tracks. In the past five years, 25 leopards were mowed down by road and rail traffic in Karnataka alone. This by no means is a negligible number when compared to the number of confirmed poaching cases in the state during the same period – 41 leopard pelts have been seized in Karnataka since January 2009.

Of course, the actual number of leopards poached would be higher as for every pelt seized at least another escapes the enforcement agencies. But then, not all leopards hit by vehicles or trains are reported or found either. Many limp away, severely injured, to adjacent forest patches and die a painful death afterwards.

A paper in the spring issue of IUCN’s Cat News by researchers from Mysore-based Nature Conservation Society and New York-based Panthera pointed out that massive expansion of road and railways in the last two decades not only fragmented several ecologically important areas in India but also increased the risk of direct mortalities of wildlife due to collisions with vehicles.

“While small roads with low-volume traffic are being converted into busy high-speed highways, new roads are opening up remote locations. Besides, India has seen a rapid growth of motor vehicles at a compound annual rate of 10.5% during 2002-2012,” says Sanjay Gubbi, the lead author of the report.

In 2012, Gubbi was among the researchers who studied the impact of vehicular traffic on the use of highway edges by large animals in Nagarhole and Bandipur tiger reserves. He observed high road mortality of chital, sambar, mouse deer, black-naped hare and small Indian civet, particularly when night traffic movement was unrestricted. Bonnet macaques and langurs are two other common victims of road accidents.

Earlier, in 2010, a study from Mudumalai tiger reserve reported road mortality of 40 species, including amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. In 2007, another study reported 21 reptile species found as roadkill near Kaziranga national park. While reptiles and amphibians are the most affected by traffic, the risk to slow-breeding large mammals are often much bigger.

The most significant finding of the recent study published in Cat News is that 19 out of 25 leopards died on road stretches that were outside sanctuaries or national parks. This underlines the presence of leopards in multiple-use and human dominated areas. Yet, few roads outside protected forests factor in the risk vehicular traffic poses to wildlife or care to undertake mitigation measures such as constructing underpasses etc.

19  of 25 leopards die on road stretches outside sanctuaries
or national parks, according to a study. Image: Halli Suresh

The National Wildlife Action Plan (2002-2016) prescribes regulations and mitigation measures which are rarely implemented on the ground. Road width, traffic speed and volume determine the chances of successful wildlife crossing. The risk of damage increases after sundown when wild animals are more active. But there have been few attempts to study the impact of roads on wildlife in India.

“In the global context, road ecology studies and Environment Impact Assessments generally prescribe mitigation measures, including slowing traffic speed, providing wildlife crossing structures and increasing driver awareness,” the study says. In the Indian context, where protected forests are typically small (less than 300 sq km), it also recommends realignment of roads to avoid fragmenting wildlife rich areas.

In a background paper to the National Board for Wildlife in 2011, TR Shankar Raman of Nature Conservation Foundation outlined the parameters for framing ecologically sound policies on linear projects affecting wildlife habitats. While analysing the impact of highways, railways, transmission lines, irrigation canals etc, Raman recommended a four-pronged strategy of prevention, restoration, realignment and mitigation. Probably, it was not convenient enough for the ministry to implement.

In 2009, a review of 79 studies that covered 131 species found that the number of documented negative effects of roads on animal abundance were five times the number of positive effects. Large mammals were predominantly affected. The review concluded that the evidence for adverse effects of roads and traffic on entire populations of species was strong enough to merit routine consideration of mitigation measures in all road construction and maintenance projects.

Carnivores are anyway relatively fewer and with big cat numbers sliding, the figures from Karnataka paint a scary picture. This should serve as baseline data on leopard road kills. But the paper cautions that rapid expansion of physical infrastructure may not allow time to fully assess its impacts through long-term monitoring. The solution is to opt for mitigation even “where data are sparse as it is invariably harder to reverse the damages caused by these permanent structures than to prevent them.”

“There is no alternative for ecologically sound and economically viable conservation planning. We cannot avoid investing in mitigation measures that safeguards the wildlife,” says Gubbi. Given that bulk of road fatalities for the leopard occur outside sanctuaries, we need to provide for safe passage wherever these animals are present, including urban stretches such as Bangalore and Gurgaon, so that the spotted cat does not have to pay for its amazing adaptability that allows it to live among us.

Terrace farming drive, construction boom to blame for Pune landslide

BBC, 31 July, 2014

Environmental experts are blaming the flattening of hilly slopes for agriculture and a construction boom for Wednesday morning's landslide that has claimed at least 30 lives and buried up to 200 people in the western Indian state of Maharashtra.

The mostly tribal population in these regions has traditionally grown a single crop of rice or finger millet, but in recent years the focus has shifted to wheat cultivation, says Saili Palande-Datar, an environmentalist with Kalpavriksh Environmental Action Group.

This, she says, has necessitated flattening of larger areas, including steep slopes "which is obviously risky".

Malin village, the site of the disaster, is located close to the backwaters of the Dimbhe dam, constructed a decade ago, and experts say areas adjoining backwaters of dams are usually landslide-prone.

"The role of the dam needs to be investigated," says Parineeta Dandekar, associate coordinator at South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People.

But she adds that "as a policy, the government is helping expansion of areas under traditional padkai (terrace farming) in the tribal belts. Earlier, the tribals used stones to support terraces, but these days big machines are used to level the ground. The presence of loose mud and absence of any reinforcement or water channels is a recipe for disaster."

Rampant construction activity is threatening the ecology of hilly areas near Pune

In recent past, the region has witnessed several flash floods and landslides.

Between 2006 and 2007, landslides hit Siddhagadwadi and Saharmach villages, burying more than 100 cattle. And last year, a flash flood caused by an illegal construction boom in Katraj hills outside Pune swept away several cars and killed two people, including a child.

Critics say massive road and real estate projects in the area have also made the region unstable.

"Hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest land has been cleared since 2007. Often, plots of encroached land are sold to builders for constructing housing complexes," says Kishore Rithe, a member of the Maharashtra state wildlife board and a conservation expert.

"The other menace is construction or widening of roads where mud is simply pushed down the slope. This chokes water channels and destroys vegetation that holds the soil together," he adds.

A massive anti-encroachment drive by the Pune district administration in 2011 failed to rein in the errant builders.

Environmental activists say that unless the wanton destruction of this ecologically fragile area is stopped immediately, the region will continue to face disasters similar to what happened in Malin.