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“Include environment concerns in calculating GDP”

P. Sunderarajan

We need to move from Gross Domestic Product to Green Domestic Product, says Jairam Ramesh

— Photo: Shanker Chakravarty

FOCUS ON INDIA: Union Minister of State for Environment and Forest Jairam Ramesh (centre), Vijay Kelkar (left), Chairman, 13th Finance Commission, and R.K. Pachauri, Director-General of TERI, release ‘GREEN India 2047’ report, in New Delhi on Friday.

NEW DELHI: Stressing the importance of changes in the system of governance in the area of environment protection, Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh on Friday said the government would try to get the National Green Tribunal Bill passed in the current session of Parliament itself.

Stating that the Parliamentary Standing Committee, which has been scrutinising the Bill, was expected to submit its report on Monday, he said, “I want to get the Bill passed in this winter session. It will pave the way for a specialised environment court and give a new dimension to environment protection.”

Mr. Ramesh also announced that a meeting would be held here with State Ministers on November 26, for a discussion on his Ministry’s proposal to set up a National Environment Protection Authority, which would function as an independent agency for giving clearances on environmental issues and enforce environmental laws and standards.

He stressed the need to bring environmental concerns as part of growth accounting and hoped that by 2015, while calculating the Gross Domestic Product, environmental concerns would also be considered. “There is a need for GDP to move from Gross Domestic Product to Green Domestic Product, not just philosophically, but also quantitatively.”

Releasing a report of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) on the status of environment and the way forward, he lamented the status of urban solid waste management in urban centres. “Our cities are the dirtiest in the whole world. If there is a Nobel Prize for dirt and filth, India will win it, no doubt,” he said.

He disagreed with TERI Chief and noted environmentalist R.K.Pachauri, on the issue of private sector involvement in forest management. “The private sector is interested in plantation. But, I am interested in making forests denser.”

Chairman of the 13th Finance Commission Vijay Kelkar suggested that the government speed up its disinvestment process to generate funds to meet new needs such as environment protection.

“I would urge the government to really have an even more ambitious programme of disinvestment over the next several years, essentially to restructure the capital base.”

Public investment in industry was required in the early years of Independence. But now the private sector can take care of it. The government can retreat from the area and divert the funds to meet new needs such as environment, urban infrastructure, renewable energy and mass rapid transport system, which only the government can take care of, he said.

Valuing the public sector units, both listed and unlisted at $300 billion to $400 billion, he said the government can restructure its assets by moving half the capital to these new areas. The TERI report , among other things, pointed that there were major lacunae in the design and implementation of environmental policy and legislation in the country, including a lack of credible incentive-based pollution deterrence.

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