Jairam Ramesh's removal from the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests on July 12 brought jubilation to Industry lobbyists. Let us wait and watch the moves of his successor, Jayanthi Natarajan.
On 20 September it was announced that mining in forest areas will be subject to tough conditions like strict adherence to forest rights laws, consent of gram sabhas (village assemblies) and a case-by-case basis approach to proposals.
While a "go/no-go" policy will not be followed, a group of ministers agreed that some forest areas will be considered inviolate where no mining can be permitted. These areas will be considered vulnerable from the environmental aspect as well as with regard to tribal populations. Although the GoM's decision is yet to be formalized, there was a consensus that the environment and forests ministry will demarcate these inviolate areas.
Jayanthi Natarajan stood her ground on the right of the gram sabha to reject diversion of traditional forest lands for projects under the Forest Rights Act.
The environment minister opposed any blanket forest clearances to expansion of up to 25% for thermal power projects pointing out that the law required her ministry to clear these projects on a case-to-case basis.
Earlier, Jayanthi Natarajan had undertaken a review and permitted the parallel processing of environmental and forests clearances, but she had stuck to the Supreme Court-ordered linkage of the two. One cannot be made operational without the other clearance.
The biggest failure of Ramesh regime was that he could not bring systemic changes.