Jairam Ramesh calls activist ‘confrontational’

[1]

Retired bureaucrat E.A.S. Sarma blamed the Prime Minister’s Office, stating, “Apparently, Jairam Ram-esh was not alone in this impropriety. His ministry must have been pressurised by PMO which seems to be omnipresent these days in the scandals that permeate the government, whether it is POSCO, Vedanta, Coal-gate, 2G Spectrum, S-Band spectrum and so on.”

He alleged that “when the (environment) ministry found that the draft Wetland Rules notified at its website came in the way of clearing two private power projects in Srikakulam district in AP, MOEF surreptitiously withdrew the draft temporarily to overcome the legal hurdles.”

Mr Sarma said he had registered his complaint with the ministry, “but the private companies’ hold over the ministry was far too strong for me to succeed,” and demanded an independent inquiry.

But things got really hot when in an email to Dr Singh on July 27, he quoted a newspaper report that alleged that an ex-official and another employee of the group had reportedly employed musclemen to attack an activist who approached the National Green Tribunal and obtained a favourable order against the firm’s project in Chhattisgarh.

That email was apparently sent at 5.30 pm.

Mr Jairam replied at 6.45 pm, stating that he was attaching two notes from his files, and that he would send a case history on Monday.

To this, Mr Sarma wrote to Mr Ramesh at 7.23 pm regarding the newspaper report and brought in the wetlands issue. He wrote, “I cannot recollect any reply from you on the letters I wrote to you. In the case of Komarada power plant in Vizianagaram, for which tribal lands were grabbed, my letter to you drew a blank. I then resigned from your MPLADs Committee! You didn’t respond even then!”

Mr Sarma wrote, “I failed to understand as to why you did not apply the same standard to POSCO and the bauxite mining cases in Visakhapatnam.”

Mr Ramesh hit back in his email in 10 minutes, at 7.33 pm. He pointed out that he had put bauxite mining in AP on hold and “the records will bear this out”. On the Srikakulam wetlands issue, he said, “When trouble erupted, I sent a team to investigate and then put the power projects on hold.”

Then, Mr Ramesh let loose. Explaining that he had been tardy in replying to Mr Sarma’s mails, he wrote, “But I found your charges so exaggerated that I didn’t want to get in to an exchange with you.”

“I think you are on a track that is clearly confrontationist. Your communications give the impression that you have made up your mind and you are not willing to give the benefit of doubt to those in government,” the minister wrote.

“You, of all people, should know how government works (or does not work). I acknowledge that the government has been unfair to you on quite a few occasions but that should be no reason why you should adopt the approach and attitude you have,” he wrote.