A Raja must do whatever IT takes

JUNGLE RAJ? A Raja's stint at the Ministry of Environment was disappointing.

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New Delhi: As DMK’s A Raja takes over as the new IT and Communications Minister from the ousted Dayanidhi Maran, CNN-IBN finds his track record at the Ministry of Environment and Forests has been dismal.

It was during Raja’s tenure that the entire tiger population in Sariska was wiped out and the Gir lions suffered depletion. Disappointingly, Raja could do nothing about it.

“I think it’s (state of wildlife) an a state of lethargy at the moment. Still, the person who runs this ministry could get things into shape if they wanted to,” says Belinda Wright of Wildlife Foundation of India.

Missing in action

In the three years of Raja’s stint at the Environment Ministry, key posts remained vacant. There was no National Board for Wildlife, Forest Advisory Committee and CITES Management Authority.

Also missing were Director General of Forests, Inspector General of Forest Conservation, Director of the National Forest Academy and Wildlife Crime Bureau.

Now as he faces a new challenge, the question is how will Raja handle the Telecom Ministry, a job where he needs to grapple with changing technology and varied lobby groups everyday.

“T R Baalu is involved in Sethu Samudran project and a lot of other things. So I think it was he who was the natural choice,” opines Editor of Tughlaq Cho Ramaswamy.

On the eve of his taking over, Raja too professed ignorance. “This is not a question of happiness or anything else. Whatever is the order of the High Command – the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu – I will have to obey it,” he said.

Raja’s challenge

With two more years to go for the UPA's term to end, key issues remain to be sorted out in the Telecom Ministry.

Raja has very little time to come out with the much-awaited 3G spectrum policy. The bigger challenge could possibly lie in getting the Defence forces to vacate 45 mega hz of spectrum - with seven million cellphone subscribers being added every month.

Raja will also need to deal with various telecom lobbies. But will all this be possible for a man who seldom thinks out of the box?

(With inputs from Sandhya Ravishankar)