Bengaluru NGO's call to protest reforms of Green Act

Claims reforms recommended by Subramaniam Committee will irreversibly damage environment and human rights

The Bengaluru-headquartered NGO Environment Support Group (ESG) that deals with issues concerning the environment, has called on the general public to petition the Centre to not go ahead with reforming the environment laws based on the recommendations of the T S R Subramanian Committee report.

According to a statement from the ESG, the Indian Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has organised a Conclave of Environment Ministers, Environment Secretaries, Chairpersons of Pollution Control Boards/Committees of all States and Union Territories, April 6 to April 8, 2015 at Delhi.

This conclave will be addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the key purpose, according to the statement, is to urge state governments to support environmental “reforms” proposed by the Union Environment Ministry based on the highly controversial recommendations of the ‘Report of High Level Committee to review Acts administered by Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change’ (also known as the T S R Subramanian Committee report).

ESG has claimed that the proposed “reforms” are highly regressive and would result in irreversible damage to environment and human rights, and compromise the ecological security of the present and future generations.

It had earlier produced a critique of the Subramanian Committee report entitled “A Non-trivial Threat to India’s Ecological and Economic Security”.

Meanwhile, the NGO has sought the help of stakeholders to impress upon the Prime Minister that environmental reforms in India must only be undertaken after due and legitimate nation-wide consultations and based on a democratic processes, and not, as is the case now, an outcome of the highly opaque and undemocratic recommendations of the Subramanian Committee subordinating environmental considerations to economic growth.

State governments and the Indian government must be pressured to back down from moving forwoard with these proposed ecologically-disastrous “reforms”, the statement said.