After receiving flak from the National Green Tribunal (NGT) for clearing three cases of coal mining in Chhattisgarh as environment minister in 2011, Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh on Tuesday defended his decision saying after being criticised for “not clearing projects”, he was now being attacked for clearing them. The NGT Monday set aside clearance granted to captive coal blocks in Parsa East and Kante-Basan in Chhattisgarh by Ramesh in 2011. “The NGT makes much of the fact that my speaking order is dated June 23, 2011 which is only one day after I received the final recommendation of the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC). Perhaps it may not have occurred to the NGT that as a minister, I could have been aware of what the FAC would recommend. While FAC was carrying out its due diligence, I was doing my own assessments enjoined upon me as minister,” Ramesh said in a written statement. “Perhaps it might also have escaped the NGT’s attention that the FAC is only an advisory committee which submits its recommendations to the minister concerned,” he added. “It is not for me to challenge the wisdom of the NGT, a quasi-judicial body that I myself was entirely responsible for envisioning, navigating the legislation through Parliament and then getting it off the ground in every way. All I can say is that after having been pilloried for not clearing projects, now I am being attacked for having cleared projects. I am being accused of being anthropocentric, while in the past I was accused of being obsessed with trees, tigers, rivers, mangroves, coasts and mountains, apart from elephants, hornbills, and other species. Clearly you can’t win them all. My conscience is clear. The speaking order speaks for itself,” Ramesh said. In his order, the minister had given six reasons for rejecting the FAC recommendation. “The first reason for my rejection of the FAC recommendation arises from my understanding that these coal blocks are clearly in the fringe and actually not in the biodiversity rich Hasdeo-Arand forest region (a no-go area),” he had said, followed by five more reasons.
