State ministers cross swords with Jairam Ramesh

State cabinet ministers from both the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) are at loggerheads with Union minister for environment Jairam Ramesh for withholding clearance to several projects in the Konkan region, Vidarbha and Navi Mumbai.

They are going to take up their complaint against Ramesh with the prime minister, arguing that staying the projects would hamper the state’s economic development.

In the Konkan alone, 50 mining and thermal projects are stalled. Regarding Nagpur, Ramesh has expressed serious concerns over a proposal for a 480MW thermal power plant.

For Navi Mumbai, he is unwilling to give clearance to the airport project.

To get the Navi Mumbai clearance, civil aviation minister Praful Patel is garnering support from chief minister Ashok Chavan, cabinet ministers, and MPs and MLAs across party lines.

“The stay on the Konkan projects has made revenue minister Narayan Rane upset,” a source said. “The state leadership believes the mining projects would generate employment and bring development to the backward region.”

Mumbai-based politicians are already in dialogue with Ramesh to ease coastal zone regulations to enable redevelopment of south Mumbai. A committee headed by Chhagan Bhujbal is preparing a presentation for the Centre in this regard.

The Centre has said it will take a call on the issues after studying the report of the Western Ghat Ecological Panel to be submitted in December 2010.

The panel is headed by noted environmental expert Madhav Gadgil.

Adding to the state’s woes is that the Western Ghats, along which the Konkan lies, is an internationally categorised ecologically sensitive zone.

What the ruling Democratic Front fears is that the stay on the development projects will strengthen the Sena-BJP opposition in the state.

But environmental activists, naturally, are happy with the status quo. Jayendra Parulekar, one of them, said: “There is a lot of opposition from local residents to mining and thermal projects.

The villagers are unwilling to part with their land. Instead of allowing mining, we should promote cultivation of Alphonso mangoes and cashew, which too fetch good revenue.”