NEW DELHI: Environmentalist Sunita Narain and top industrialist Ratan Tata were on Wednesday removed from a high-level panel on climate change headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who reconstituted the committee by increasing the number of his Cabinet colleagues in it.
While reconstituting the high-level “Prime Minister’s council on climate change”, which has not met for the past three years, Mr Modi retained Teri chairperson R.K. Pachauri, economist Nitin Desai and retired diplomat Chandrasekhar Dasgupta as non-government members of the 18-member panel.
Ms Narain, who is one of the noted environmentalists in the country and heads the Centre for Sci-ence and Environment (CSE), and Mr Tata, the chairman emeritus of the Tata Sons Limited, were dropped from the committee as non-government members.
Environment ministry officials said there is a provision in the notification that the chairman (the Prime Minister) can invite any other minister/officer/expert to any meeting of the committee depending upon the context of the meeting.
Reacting to the development, the CSE refused to comment on Ms Narain being dropped, but expre-ssed the hope that the council will work towards developing an ambitious national plan on climate change.
“The CSE will provide all support and assistance to the council to achieve these goals,” Ms Narain said in a statement and said the CSE was happy at the reconstitution of the council.
The reconstitution of the committee came days ahead of a crucial United Nations meet on global warming in Peru.
The council, headed by Prime Minister Mr Modi, and tasked with evolving a coordinate national action for assessment, adaptation and mitigation of climate change at the national level, saw increase in the ministerial strength with induction of urban development minister and coal minister as members.
These ministries were not represented in the previous council headed by Manmohan Singh.
External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, finance minister Arun Jaitley, environment minister Prakash Javadekar, water resources minister Uma Bharati, agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh, urban development minister M. Venkaiah Naidu, science and technology minister Jitendra Singh and coal minister Piyush Goel are the members of the council.
