Amid apprehensions of conflict of interest, Petroleum Minister Veerappa Moily, who assumed additional charge as Environment Minister on Tuesday, sought to allay the fears by citing he had earlier too donned two caps at the same time — that of the Ministries of law and Corporate Affairs. He also asserted that neither the files would be kept pending for clearances nor the image of the Ministry as the green regulator would be compromised in the process.
His assertion comes amid speculation that his predecessor Jayanthi Natarajan had to quit the Ministry due to huge backlog of pending clearances affecting big corporate houses.
“I am the one who is accustomed to dispose of the files by the evening. Not even a single file will be taken home and not even a single file will be pending unless it requires yet another (look),” said Moily.
“Everything has its space. Petroleum has its space... every Ministry has a space.... Ultimately, we have to go by the rules of the game which have been laid out by any Ministry,” he said.
He narrated his previous experiences when he had effectively dealt with various issues pertaining to the Ministries of law, Corporate Affairs and Petroleum. “I was law Minister. I brought about a number of reforms in the law Ministry. It did not come into conflict with anybody. Then I took over the Corporate Affairs Ministry.... (and for) 10 to 15 years... The new company bill was pending...,” he reminded. The Bill was passed replacing the nearly six-decade-old regulations that earlier governed the corporates in the country.
Moily also took up the contentious issue of the implementation of the report related to Western Ghats prepared by the High level Working Group chaired by K Kasturirangan. He met Kerala and Maharashtra CMs on his first day in office discussing various issues affecting their respective States due to implementation of the report.
Moily has agreed to take up the issue with the CMs of all six States that are to be affected by the Kasturirangan report. They will examine the various recommendations of the report and send their suggestions/ objections to the Ministry in a time bound manner, which would be then considered by the Ministry before taking the final decision on this contentious issue.
Moily clarified that in the process of granting green clearances, the basic environmental principles will not be compromised. On his priorities as the Environment Minister, he quipped that there is room for everything be it environment, wildlife or mankind.