Jairam Ramesh Moved to Rural reward or punishment?

Jairam Ramesh Moved to Rural reward or punishment?

NEW DELHI: Former Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh moved to Rural Development in Tuesday's Cabinet Reshuffle, and Jayanthi Natarajan replaced him as the Environment Minister. While many in the political circle have seen this as a result of Jairam's obstructionist policies, others believe that it is a step up for the firebrand minister.

Jairam was a minister whose middle name was controversy and a man who habitually hogged headlines where ever he went. But Jairam Ramesh was also the man who changed the profile of a defunct Environment Ministry from a rubber stamp institution, to a functioning, transparent department. But many now claim that it's his tough stand on green issues that has cost him his job in the latest Cabinet reshuffle.

Gurudas Dasgupta said, "Ramesh has been given a consolation prize of a Cabinet post. He was doing good work, he was fighting the corporate world to secure environment which the government didn't want, so he has been shunted out."

Some of the projects which got Jairam Ramesh on a collision course with his Cabinet colleagues were:

*His division of coal blocks as 'go' and 'no go' areas that had angered the coal and power ministers

*His refusal to allow expansion of a highway between two tiger reserves in Madhya Pradesh which got him in conflict with the then Highways Minister Kamal Nath

*His Opposition to big industrial projects like Vedanta and Lavasa which had the corporate leaders worried.

Hailed initially by the environmentalists for his tough stand on green issues, the firebrand minister was soon seen giving in to pressure. He cleared the controversial Posco project as well as many coal blocks in thick forest areas that he had earlier rejected.

But sources within the Congress party claim that his new post in the Rural Development Ministry is a step up and a definite promotion.

The question is whether this is a punishment or a reward for being moved out of the Environment Ministry. It is to the Jairam Ramesh's credit that he has made it into an institution that is now a hot zone, right at the centre of the environment vs development debate, and it's this legacy which his successor Jayanthi Natarajan will inherit