Manmohan Singh blended growth of India with many green goals

New Delhi: Manmohan Singh, often hailed as the architect of modern India’s economic reforms, also championed environmental conservation and climate action during his decade-long tenure as prime minister (2004-2014).

Under his leadership, India launched the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC), passed the landmark Forest Rights Act (FRA) to protect the rights of tribal communities and established the National Green Tribunal (NGT) to safeguard the environment through swift legal action.

For centuries, India’s tribal communities were side-lined from decisions about their own land. The UPA-1 government under Singh flipped that script.

His government passed the Forest Rights Act in 2006, handing back the control of forests to the people who lived in and protected them.

Around 25 lakh land titles, including more than 23.7 lakh individual titles, have so far been granted to the Scheduled Tribes (STs) and other traditional forest dwellers under the FRA. In July 2008, Singh urged all chief ministers to act swiftly to grant tribals their rights over forest land.

“It is primarily the responsibility of the state govts to ensure that a very vulnerable section of the population of our country finally gets its basic rights over the land which has historically been in its possession,” he wrote in a letter.

In 2008, the Manmohan Singh government delivered the NAPCC, an eight-fold strategy to tackle global warming.