The ministry of environment & forests (MoEF) is planning to adopt a “name and shame policy” for corporate houses.
Minister of state for environment Jairam Ramesh pointed out that imposing a penalty of `1 lakh had little meaning for a corporate with a turnover of `4,000 crore.
“Using the name and shame approach meant getting a corporate to pass a board resolution acknowledging their environment violations and then ensuring this is put up on their website,” he said.
The minister had earlier stated that India planned to launch a public data base of the country’s worst polluters compiled along the model being used by China.
Mr Ramesh admitted that economic growth cannot be allowed to be brought to a halt especially since the country is faced with the unprecedented task of creating jobs for 8-9 million people per year. Even China needs to create 1.5 million jobs per year, he said.
Mr Ramesh qualified that these jobs had to be green jobs which would help sustain the environment.
Mr Ramesh had earlier proposed a carrot and stick policy to urge corporates to adopt greener methods and had even requested finance minister Pranab Mukherjee to devise a system of incentives and penalties to incentivise green behaviour.
“We have to find a balance between economy and environment especially since the trade off between industrialisation and its impact on forests is most visible in the states of Orissa, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.”
He also warned that “both growth fundamentalism and eco fundamentalism were dangerousand needed to be avoided.”