The Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) has finally put up on its website the controversial report of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP). This follows the judgment of the Delhi High Court on May 17 rejecting the ministry’s plea that the court set aside an earlier order of the Central Information Commissioner (CIC) asking it to put the report in the public domain.
The MoEF, pushed into a corner on the issue a number of times, has invited comments from the general public on the report. It has, however, also added a rider. The link to the report on the ministry’s website takes the visitor through a flat disclaimer, “The Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel report has not been formally accepted by the Ministry and that the report is still being analysed and considered by the Ministry.”
The statement on the MoEF website, issued late Wednesday by the deputy director of the research and development division of the ministry Amit Love, has also called for comments and views on the report from stakeholders within 45 days.
The MoEF had constituted the WGEEP on March 4, 2010 under the chairmanship of Prof Madhav Gadgil to look into the ecological status of the biodiversity hotspot, and mandated it to suggest measures to protect the Ghats. The panel submitted its report to the ministry on August 31, 2011.
Thereafter, the extensively-researched document remained in cold storage till April 9 when the CIC, responding to a complaint about a right to information (RTI) request, asked the ministry to place the report in the public domain. The MoEF approached the high court for a stay, but had to finally accede when the court concurred with the observations of the CIC, Shailesh Gandhi.
While the government is under no obligation to accept the recommendations chalked out by the 14-member panel in its 500-page report, it was reportedly under pressure from the six state governments which would have been adversely affected otherwise.
