Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's Art of Living Foundation will now coach officers from the Indian Forest Service, who are employed with the Ministry of Environment on ‘Building Competencies for Personal Excellence’, a compulsory one-week training program.
Speaking to Indian Express, Pushp Dant, the national director for government programmes at the Art of Living, said that the program – scheduled between 18-22 December – is the first module aimed specifically at forest officers alone.
Meanwhile, foundation's legal battle with the National Green Tribunal (NGT) does not appear to concern the Ministry. Siddhanta Das, Director General at the ministry told the daily that the two issues could not be clubbed together.
The (NGT) case should not be linked to this training programme, which has nothing to do with matters of forest administration. We send small batches of officers for such programmes to different government and private institutes. It’s a routine matter.
Art of Living is one of the many foundations tied up with the government’s Department of Personnel and Training, and has conducted similar training programs with several IAS officers since 2016.
The ministry has selected 36 officers for training in the course, and will be paying a 'nominal fee' of Rs 6 lakh for the entire batch.
Art of Living is embroiled in a legal battle involving the NGT over the former's World Culture Festival. The NGT claimed that the foundation should pay up Rs 5 crore as compensation for the alleged damage caused to the Yamuna flood plains due to the construction actvities undertaken as part of the World Culture Festival.
The NGT also rapped the Minstry of Environment for submitting a report which said that temporary construction on the flood plains did not require any clearance, a stance that was in clear contradiction to the Ministry's earlier order that all construction required clearance.
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