Natarajan praises Ramesh's good work

Acknowledging the good work done by her predecessor, new environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan said Jairam Ramesh did a magnificent job in bringing environment issues into the mainstream. She said she would take forward the work initiated by Ramesh.

“The work of the environment ministry is to ensure the enforcement of environment laws, in which my predecessor made remarkable progress. That will certainly continue to be the focus of the ministry,” she said at her first press conference after assuming charge.

Natarajan said her ministry would ensure all regulatory laws dealing with the environment were implemented on the ground.

She was talking to reporters at the curtain-raiser to a seminar on disaster management, to be held July 22-24. The seminar is being organised by the Supreme Court, the Delhi High Court, the Indian Law Institute and the environment and law ministries.

She said the poor were more vulnerable to the possible impact of environmental degradation. “They are also affected due to ill-designed policies, which do not mitigate environmental degradation and climate change properly,” she said.