India: Former minister delayed projects at party behest | Janaki Lenin

Jayanthi Natarajan, a former minister of environment and forests, resigned from the primary membership of the Congress party on Friday. Since the party was defeated at the polls in May 2014, Natarajan is the latest to quit the Congress. More than her resignation, it’s the letter she sent to the party president, Sonia Gandhi, in November 2014 that is significant. Released to the press only now, it reveals how the ministry of environment and forests functioned under her two-and-half-year term, between July 2011 and December 2013. She claims she received instructions from the office of the party’s vice-president Rahul Gandhi on particular infrastructure projects. She also liaised with Sonia Gandhi on specific ones in which the latter had expressed interest. Rahul Gandhi championed the cause of the Dhongria Kondh tribals who opposed the mining of bauxite from the Niyamgiri hills, Orissa. He famously called himself a soldier of the tribe. Jairam Ramesh, Natarajan’s predecessor at the ministry, refused to grant permission to Vedanta Aluminium to mine the hill, a policy decision continued by Natarajan. Subsequently, the company challenged the ministry’s decision in the Supreme Court that let the residents have the last word. But none in the Congress seemed to mind depriving the rights of people living on land on which the Korean-promoted POSCO steel plant was to be built. Those residents had no soldier to fight for their rights against a state that wanted to protect the interests of India’s largest foreign investment, valued at $12bn, at all costs. Natarajan also hints that she delayed projects at Rahul Gandhi’s behest. While she was minister, corporate executives complained that even after their projects were approved by the ministry’s clearance committees, Natarajan delayed signing off on them. As many as 35 large projects worth more than rupees 35,000 crores (about £3.2m) were reportedly stuck. At that time, the minister vehemently denied stalling projects. However, in her letter to Sonia Gandhi, Natarajan listed a few projects on which she had received instructions. One such was Mundra port, promoted by Gautam Adani, known to be close to the then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi. Another was Lavasa township, being built near Pune, Maharashtra. During Natarajan’s tenure, one ministry official was caught red-handed accepting a bribe in exchange for clearing a limestone-mining project. In October 2013, income tax officials recovered diaries during a raid on the offices of Aditya Birla group in New Delhi. They found references to rupees 7.08 crores as “payments under Project-J, Environment and Forest.” One company official claimed it was a listing of unaccounted cash receipts, while another said the sums related to a proposed real estate project. Some corporate executives alleged they had to meet one of the minister’s aides to get their paperwork moving. As a prime ministerial-aspirant Modi charged that industry had to pay a ‘Jayanthi tax’ to get approvals from the ministry. The Congress party stoutly defended Natarajan then. But after she revealed that the Gandhis interfered in the ministry’s functioning, the Congress party repeated Modi’s corruption charges against her. Significantly, the central bureau of investigation (CBI) alleged the diversion of 512 hectares (1,265 acres) of forests in Saranda, Jharkhand, for iron ore mining by Jindal Steel and Power Ltd, violated environmental norms. The company is owned by Naveen Jindal, who was Congress MP then. In addition, the CBI is investigating irregularities in four other projects that were cleared by Natarajan’s ministry. The bureau might question the former minister in future. To be fair, the delayed projects were not paragons of environmental probity; they did fall afoul of regulations. While the hold-up may have served short-term political interests, the price will be paid in the long term. The new government appears to wooing the corporate world. According to a report published on Monday, 190 projects worth rupees 3.31 trillion were approved in the past six months, and more than 100 business leaders joined the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Instead of protecting the environment, safeguards are being used by political parties to prove a point to their political opponents.