Commenting on the state of the Environment and Forests Ministry (MoEF) before he took over, Union minister Prakash Javadekar said, “Earlier, the ministry was like a roadblock ministry, with projects worth several crores being stalled.”
Now, the ministry was looking to bring in transparency through policy-based decisions with a ‘vision, passion and mission, without commission’, he said, speaking at the International Youth Conclave organised by Ethiraj College for Women on Saturday.
“All the highly-polluting industries have been granted time till March 2015 to install 24-hour real-time monitoring devices to assess the level of air and water pollution,” he said.
The ministry will also take industries into confidence and provide them incentives to reduce pollution.
Speaking of coal imports, he said a number of mining projects had been stalled without environment clearance.
“Mining is essential, but it must be done in a scientific way,” he said.
The import of coal from Indonesia and Australia amounted to Rs. 1,20,000 crore per year. “We should aim at reducing this amount by scientifically mining coal,” he said.
