Union Minister of State for Environment, Forests Prakash Javadekar was at the Indian Merchants Chamber in Mumbai to speak on “Balancing Environment with Development " on Monday .
Union Minister of State for Environment, Forests Prakash Javadekar was at the Indian Merchants Chamber in Mumbai to speak on “Balancing Environment with Development " on Monday .
Javadekar was at the meeting trying to emphasise the government's commitment to conserve the environment while promoting development. He spoke at length on speedy clearance and actions on projects by his ministry and took jibes at 'roadblock ministry' of UPA as it created a 'negative atmosphere' for development.
While he began by saying that people owed the earth to the future generation 'to maintain intergenerational equality', he soon delved into the relation between development and environment. He said that there is a perception that environment and development are against each other.
He spoke of the 'roadblock ministry' that the UPA government had had left behind. "I have inherited a negative legacy. Environment ministry came to be perceived as a roadblock ministry, a speedbreaker ministry," he said.
He iterated that stalling projects had become a philosophical ideology due to the UPA rule. "How did you tolerate this (pending decisions on project clearance) for 10 years?" he asked.
Referring to Jayanti Natarajan's letter on how she was stopped from clearing projects by Rahul Gandhi, Javadekar said,"Jayanti Natarajan showed us how projects were stalled." He also added that projects for public interest had been kept pending despite receiving the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's nod. "Seventeen prioritised projects of public importance were kept pending for 17 months despite the Prime Minister's recommendation," he said.
Taking a jibe at Congress talking about the former prime minister's widely held image during his tenure, Javadekar opined, "Manmohan Singh was a good economist. But while he was office he was not in power."
Javadekar spoke about actions taken by his ministry on pending projects and stated that the ministry had cut through red tape by decentralisation. He spoke about infrastructure work cleared for defence.
He also spoke about the Centre's interest in making India pollution free and the use of non conventional energy.
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