In India’s unequal development, economy trumps ecology
As the world’s fastest growing economy, India continues to enthuse global business leaders. However, this business growth has come at a heavy price, as India’s ecological parameters plummet to record lows, threatening the livelihoods, health and lives of millions.
The residents of any large Indian city did not really need to have it confirmed for them, but the recently published State of India’s Environment 2018 report ranked India near the bottom of the pile of the global community as far as the environment was concerned.
Coming just a few months after the World Economic Forum announced a similar finding in January, the report, by Down To Earth magazine, is a confirmation for those who doubt — and there are quite a few, especially within the Indian government — that even though India might be the fastest-growing large economy in the world, this growth has come at a huge, and as yet undefined, cost to the nation’s environment and health.
Yet that cost is all too visible across India for most of the year. In New Delhi and the National Capital Region, for instance, about 65 percent of summer days and 85 percent of winter days are rated “very poor” or “poor” on the air-quality index. Only about 1 percent of the year, about four days, is classified as having satisfactory air-pollution levels. The situation is similar, if not worse, in about 20 other cities across India.
The country scores only 5.75 in the global air-quality index, while Switzerland and Japan score more than 90, which shows how far India has slipped behind in ecological terms while trying to boost its economic growth.
The situation has worsened over the past four years. Though India has been on a strong economic-growth curve for nearly two decades, the Narendra Modi government has, since it took charge in May 2014, taken many steps to liberalize or even abolish a variety of environmental checks and norms that had been in place governing the activities of industries and businesses.
In India, implementation of existing rules and norms has always been the weakest link in the chain, with companies openly flouting and breaking laws, and exceeding or totally ignoring the environmental regulations imposed on their projects. There are hundreds of such cases in the country. Several real-estate companies have built much more than they were authorized to do; in one notorious case near Delhi, a builder who was granted permission for a nine-story building instead constructed a 56-story structure.
Unchecked construction activity is one of the main reasons for the terrible air-pollution levels in Delhi and the neighboring areas, where particulate matter in the air regularly exceeds 1,200 parts per million, almost 20 times more than the safe limit set by the World Health Organization.
The most recent, and high-profile, example of companies being given a free hand by the government at the expense of environment is that of Vedanta, a metals company. Its proposal to expand capacity at a copper-smelting plant in the southern state of Tamil Nadu had been pending for several years because the former Congress-led government had insisted that the company must carry out public consultations with people living near the plant before any permission could be granted for expansion.
Within months of taking charge, however, the Modi government granted approval for the expansion and Vedanta began construction. Nearby residents were alarmed at the growth of a highly polluting plant and launched a protest campaign against Vedanta for its pollution of water and air. The Chennai High Court halted the expansion work and ordered Vedanta to hold public consultations. Subsequently, the entire plant was ordered to be shut down by the state government following the death of 11 protesters shot by police in May.
A large number of projects that were previously delayed pending consultations and other environmental clearances have started up under this government’s watch, though exact figures are not available. Last year, the National Green Tribunal, which rules on all ecological matters, quashed the government’s order and restored the necessity for public consultations on large projects.
If the government continues on its ill-advised path of removing further environmental checks and does not act hard and fast against polluters, its actions are bound to lead to large-scale social unrest.
Ranvir S. Nayar
To boost its business-friendly image, the government is also ready to abolish some key environmental regulations, notably the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ). This is a law enacted in the 1980s after the Indian Supreme Court criticized the then government for permitting unregulated construction in coastal areas. This led to the demolition of several hotels, apartment buildings, offices and factories within 500 meters of the high-tide line all along the 7,500km Indian coastline.
In April 2018, the government released a draft of revised CRZ regulations that remove a lot of the hurdles blocking construction. Environmentalists roundly criticized the revised rules as being an open invitation to real-estate companies and other industries to start building on the coast, threatening the already precarious marine life as well as millions of people living in fishing communities along the coast. Even if the government does go ahead and amend the CRZ, however, it is bound to face a challenge in the courts.
Another major change the government is keen to make is to allow the resumption of large-scale mining and manufacturing in the densely forested areas of central and eastern India, as well as along the Himalayas. The forests in these parts are home to most of the 110 million tribal residents of India. These people, among the poorest and most excluded from the country’s economic boom, have long felt exploited and ill-treated by the government and businesses. This is the primary reason for the large-scale presence of left-wing extremists called Naxalites, who have vowed to drive out both the government and industry from the tribal areas. For more than five decades, the Naxalites have waged war against the state, leading to thousands of deaths in large swathes of eastern and central India.
As if to add insult to injury, the government has also increased its targets for road building, especially through forests and wildlife parks. The federal government is currently pressuring the state government of Karnataka to allow construction of national highways through some of the densest forests in the state, which are home to large populations of tigers, elephants, leopards and other species. The construction plans seem to totally ignore the fact that a number of wild animals, most notably tigers and elephants, have been killed in accidents by vehicles or trains passing through the national parks or elephant corridors. According to some reports, human-animal conflict causes more than 80 elephant deaths a year, many of them in rail or road accidents.
Water and soil pollution are also at extremely dangerous levels in several parts of the country, with many rivers among the most polluted in the world. Chemicals, industrial effluents, sewage, fertilizers and pesticides in the run-off from farms are found in toxic levels in many rivers.
One of the main reasons behind the support for the Naxalites is that while India’s economic development benefits only a handful of urban Indians, the poorest and most excluded sections of Indian society — often living in villages and forests, or slums in the cities — are the ones who suffer the most from the serious harmful effects of pollution and so pay the highest price for economic development. The high levels of pollution, combined with climate change, is threatening not only their livelihoods, especially farmers and tribal groups, who live off the forests, but also their lives.
The pollution is leading to serious health hazards, including respiratory diseases, cancers and other problems. It is estimated that more than 2.5 million deaths in India in 2015 were the result of pollution, which amounts to almost 27 percent of all deaths caused by non-communicable diseases. In fact, India has the dubious distinction of having the largest level of pollution-related deaths in the world — accounting for a quarter of all deaths — according to a study published by medical research journal The Lancet.
In addition, more than 92 percent of pollution-related deaths in India occur in low-income families, while the beneficiaries of the causes of pollution – rich, business-owning families – escape unscathed.
If the government continues on its ill-advised path of removing further environmental checks and does not act hard and fast against polluters, its actions are bound to lead to large-scale social unrest and could easily disrupt the economic boom the country has been enjoying.
• Ranvir S. Nayar is managing editor of Media India Group, a global platform based in Europe and India, which encompasses publishing, communication, and consultation services.
