Dr Ola Ullsten, the former Prime Minister of Sweden and Chairman World Council for Corporate Governance met thePrime Minister on 15 June and apprised him of his trip to Palampur where he attended the '7th World Congress on Environment Management'. He advised the PM that following the last conference in London the World Council for Corporate Governance has taken up the issue of governance as the key to ending poverty and pollution.

Dr Ullsten told the PM on how impressed he was with India's corporate commitment to the environment, judging from the presentations given by the Indian companies who had won the Golden Peacock Awards for environment instituted by India's Institute of Directors.

Dr Madhav Mehra and Dr Ola Ullsten meeting
Dr Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India at his
residence in New Delhi on 15th June 2005

Dr Ullsten told the PM on how impressed he was with India's corporate commitment to the environment, judging from the presentations given by the Indian companies who had won the Golden Peacock Awards for environment instituted by India's Institute of Directors. These winners who included Tatas, Birlas, ONGC and NTPC showed how they are trying to upgrade environment by designing closed loop processes resulting in zero waste and large scale plantation of trees on barren lands.

The Prime Minister said India could have done better than China but we started our reforms a decade too late. The Prime Minister acknowledged that steel, coal, cement, hydrocarbon industries are polluting environment and he too believed in the 'polluter to pay principle'. He mentioned that automotive industry is taking the lead in changing from hydrocarbon to CNG and New Delhi now is the only world capital with public transport totally being run on CNG.

Dr Madhav Mehra apprised the PM how S M Charitable Trust had set up a 35000 sq ft Convention Centre in Palampur to organize international conferences and to put Palampur on the world map. He brought to PM's notice, the plight of a local tribe called 'gaddies' who are facing extinction because of the neglect of local administration. He said that despite the fact that Palampur is a highly prosperous town, the life for the gaddies especially the children and the women folk in villages situated barely 10 kilometers away on the Dhauladhar hills has not changed over the last 40 years. 'Their children have to walk for miles to go to schools and even lack basic medical facilities. They have no access to roads, school, hospital and even a basic medical dispensary'.

Dr Mehra advised the PM of the holistic approach of World Council for Corporate Governance on the issues of governance, environment and CSR and also how they are educating businesses on developing a triple bottom line growth focusing on people, planet and profit. He told the PM that World Council for Corporate Governance is working with governments and business to change the business model to take into account the human, social and environmental costs of doing business and how to make markets transparent so they can work for the poor.