Before the Taj Corridor scandal broke out, the environmental issue that troubled the public most was the control of urban pollution. It was left to the SC to find a solution to the problem and the government was reduced to an enforcement agency. Not much of science was involved. But there are many environmental issues which demand scientific solutions, especially in the matter of improving the quality of potable water and the disposal of waste. The inevitable happened and the ministry of environment went the way that many other ministries have gone - it came to be dominated by administrators.