The National Environmental awards, the highest in the country, were given away yesterday. The ceremony went off without a hitch, except the awards conferred were for 1998 and 1999. The reason for the large backlog: The selection committee is so high-powered that they don’t have time to meet.In addition, this April, the Vice President who is the chairman of the committee, said that the nominations require stricter scrutiny. The result is that the names for 2000 and 2001 have been held over.The Indira Gandhi Paryavaran Puraskars, apart from having a substantial cash component, are the most prestigious. The amount was increased from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 5 lakh last year.The awardee in the individual category for 1998 is Jagdish Ranganath Godbole for his distinguished work in the core area of Western ghats. By the time the award was conferred, he was no more, and his daughter Girija Godbole collected the award on his behalf.The 1998 award in the organisational category was given to Barefoot College of Social Work Research Centre. The 1999 award went to Ryan Foundation of Mumbai for its work on environmental awareness and protection.The seven-member committee is constituted by the Prime Minister and comprises Vice President as the chairman, Speaker, Lok Sabha as member, Minister for Environment and Forests as member and Secretary of the Ministry of Environment and Forests as secretary. In addition, there are three experts who shortlist the nominations. The constitution of the committee itself takes time.According to the officials working on the process of finalising these awards, the most difficult part is to get an appointment with the Vice President.This year when the committee met in April to finalise the awards till 2001, Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat said that the nominations require scrutiny and verification at the ground-level. The source and the agencies funding the organisation also have to be mentioned. Now, the Ministry has sent all the short-listed names for 2000 and 2001 to their six regional offices, so that the claims made in the nominations can be double-checked.Earlier, after the advertisements were issued, close to 500 nominations would come to the Ministry. A brief would be prepared and sent to the experts and to a separate committee set up for shortlisting in the Ministry of Environment and Forests itself. They would reject the self-nominations but would depend heavily on the credibility of the people who were nominating them.After four shortlists (the experts and the committee in the Ministry), the selection committee would finalise names. There would be no counter-checking of names selected.The main challenge would then be to get an appointment from the Vice President. The next would be to find a suitable date and day to confer the awards. This time, the award ceremony nearly got postponed because the Minister for Environment and Forests T R Baalu was expected to be away.Last year, a date had been fixed on Ozone day (September 16), but had to cancelled.Now the committee is yet to be constituted for 2002 awards. As the backlog grows, it is time for issuing advertisements for the 2003 awards.
