Prakash Javadekar can walk the tightrope

Prakash Javadekar set a scorching pace of changes in the environment ministry during his two-year tenure.
He has the talent to calm ruffled feathers in the education sector while proceeding with the government's agenda in this space.
Nitin Sethi reports.

The weather is set to change for Prakash Javadekar, the only minister of state with Independent charge to get elevated to Cabinet rank in the reshuffle on Tuesday.

He was given an important portfolio in the government, of human resource development.

One factor will not change for him, though. He would still be required to implement a report authored by T S R Subramanian.

As the environment minister, he had commissioned and implemented parts of a report by Subramanian, a retired bureaucrat, to alter the canvas of environment regulations.

As he takes over the human resource development ministry from Smriti Irani, the 65-year-old former banker from Pune would have an opportunity to implement a report by Subramanian on reforms in education, which had been mired in a controversy earlier.

Javadekar had set a scorching pace of changes in the ministry during his two-year tenure.

Environmentalists did not appreciate most of these changes. Some of the ones that environmentalists did, perhaps got lesser attention than he had expected.

But the party leadership clearly appreciated his talent in finding ways to promote ease of doing business and yet furthering the government's intent on environment protection.

The government awarded him for his achievements and, some party observers would say, for his modesty.

In any emerging economy, an environment minister's crown is full of thorns.

A country seeking high economic growth, trying to balance the demands of emerging environmentalism and looking to meet the challenges of poverty eradication is bound to see the environment minister getting flak from one end or the other.

Javadekar was able to walk the tightrope.

He deftly tried to deflect the debate on the trade-offs and posit it as a win-win for environment and development.

At the Paris climate change talks, he helped generate the profile for India that the government wanted and manoeuvred the negotiations to include phrases that were close to the prime minister's heart, such as climate justice.

Driven by a long list of recommendations from the Prime Minister's Office to look into, Javadekar got many of the changes to environment regulations done through executive orders.

Some that remain require legislative changes that will now be shepherded by his successor, Anil Madhav Dave.

Javadekar worked to ease the process of clearances in the environment ministry.

Setting up an online system of filing applications ironed out some of the kinks in delays.

He oversaw a series of regulations and solutions to entanglements in the courts that had been pending.

He brought stricter norms for thermal power plants and revamped waste regulations, which were pending for a while.

His deft tackling of a section of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, ideologically opposed to genetically modified crops, against the government's desire to promote science and technology, would perhaps exemplify the talent he would require to calm the ruffled feathers in the education sector, while proceeding with the government's agenda in this space.

Javadekar's replacement at the environment ministry, Dave, would have to hit the ground running. The Rajya Sabha member from Madhya Pradesh had earlier shown keen interest in environmental issues.

He played a key role in a recently organised meet on environmentalism in Madhya Pradesh. Earlier, he was a member of the Parliamentary Forum on Climate Change.