Thaindian News

New Delhi, March 18 (IANS) Minister of Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh Friday said he is often “made a Frankenstein” by the Indian media for enforcing laws.

“I am surprised, and I think it’s starvation for news in the Indian media that a minister who is only enforcing laws is drawing headlines. In no country of the world would a minister enforcing laws be drawing headlines… he is just doing his day-to-day activities,” Ramesh said at the India Today Conclave here.

“But here I am being made as if I am a Frankenstein, hell bent on destroying an economic system built assiduously over the last few decades. Whereas all I am doing is ask a very simple question - are the laws being observed or not?” he said.

Ramesh was addressing the session “The Way to a Green GDP” on the first of the two-day conclave.

Talking about the way ahead, the minister said that green GDP can be achieved only if laws are enforced.

“India delights in passing laws but takes greater delight in bypassing them. So it’s of no surprise that even though we have some of the best laws in the world, they have been characterised by non-observance,” he said.

If laws are outdated, it is the government’s responsibility to modernise them, he added.

“I am happy to say that professor Partha Dasgupta (economist) has agreed to chair a committee we are setting up to define a road map for national resource accounting as far as India is concerned. By the year 2015, we hope to be one of the few countries that will report both conventional economic growth and economic growth after being adjusted for environmental factors,” Ramesh said.