Wake up to environmental regulation

WITHOUT CONTEMPT

This year, nationalists celebrated the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the United Nations' panel on climate change (along with Al Gore), because an Indian, Rajendra Pachouri, chairs the UN panel.

Pachouri gets invited to speak about climate change and global warming at power-packed corporate events in India, at which, eloquent Indian ministers beseech the audience to do small things like adopting a tree to contribute to improving the environment.

Indians love icons, not issues. Pachouri's Indian origin makes a nationalist's heart swell with pride. What he got awarded for would matter little. So was the case with the conferment of the Magsaysay Award (in 1997) on environmentalist lawyer MC Mehta.

A Supreme Court judge, known for strict enforcement of environmental law, was quickly labelled a "green judge". Reports of the judge importing green-coloured apparel within the scarce confines of the black-and-white judicial attire abound. However, as with most matters Indian, tokenism and iconism has crowded out real regulation when it comes to environmental issues.

As we turn into a new year, it is noteworthy that if there is a single area in which Indian law and regulatory policy lacks the heightened alert that is warranted, it is in the area of regulating environmental impact caused by the way we lead our lives. Take something as simple as the air traffic policy. It impacts not only the lives of the large Indian middle-class that uses air travel, but also the environment in which our less-privileged countrymen live.

Unfailingly, every single evening, every aircraft that is supposed to land in Mumbai, circles around the city several times over, burning enormous aviation turbine fuel overhead, and spewing emissions all over the city.

However, if celebrity society braggarts are to be believed, when the horse racing season in Pune (Mumbai's most famous and proximate satellite city) is underway, air traffic controllers are under instructions to ensure that Mumbai-Pune-Mumbai passenger flights face no landing delays.

Mumbai and Pune are so well connected by a world-class multi-lane expressway, that a racing enthusiast from South Mumbai would reach the race course in Pune in just about a couple of hours. Traffic on this expressway moves at optimal fuel-efficient speeds, so much so that the time taken is even shorter than the even-more-environment-friendly trains that have connected Mumbai and Pune for ages.

However, despite immense air traffic congestion in Mumbai, it is not surprising that there isn't even any debate over whether the Mumbai-Pune passenger flight sector should at all exist. Even assuming that reports of landing priority for race-course-driven flights on this sector are false (this author, for one, would not be surprised if such reports were indeed true), arguably, there is no credible reason left for Mumbai and Pune to be connected by air.

Even if public passenger transport on this flight sector were left undisturbed, there is no cause left to allow private aircraft ferrying individual passengers or families on such sectors, contributing to the crazy air traffic congestion, the resultant pollution and global warming.

Of course, exceptions can be made in special situations such as elections, but as a rule, there is no merit in any policy that leaves such sectors unchecked.

There is also no credibility in the regulatory policy governing the grant of rights to private ownership of aircraft. Regulatory policy ought to check how much a private jet owner uses the aircraft in sectors that are covered by widely available public air transport.

Regulatory audit ought to check the extent of flying time spent in well-networked sectors and in under-serviced sectors, in order to determine if such licenses ought to be renewed.

Arguably, there is no public policy interest in letting private aircraft connect, for instance, Delhi and Mumbai, when at least four mainstream air carriers connect the two cities with flights every hour.

There is a lot of merit in increasing the frequency of public passenger flights on such extremely populated sectors, even while denying private aircraft the right to fly on such sector during the day, when public flights are available.

Of course, this may sound like a scarcity-oriented policy, but the fact is that with just one criss-cross runway pair, there is an acute scarcity of air traffic infrastructure in Mumbai.

Aviation is but only an example. The small man's dream vehicle "" the inflation-protected Rs 1 lakh car "" has the potential to land millions of more vehicles on our roads, but without corresponding improvement in road infrastructure, traffic congestion and the resultant pollution could only get worse.

To promote usage of public transport, Singapore makes car purchases expensive with state levies that stagger close to the price of the car. Here, competitors who themselves sell only slightly more expensive cars adopt environmental concerns as grounds to oppose the economy car.

Take shopping malls, airport and hotel lobbies. Even while governors across the United States compete to be eco-friendly "" quite a few have legislated that temperatures in public premises should be calibrated at no lower than 24 degrees Celsius "" in tropical India, people have to wear sweaters to cope with the cold in such places.

One can only hope that law-making makes a modest start in this department in 2008. It will need support from responsible businesses. The alternative is perhaps to ready oneself to become one of the world's largest desert regions.

(The author is a partner of JSA, Advocates & Solicitors. The views expressed herein are his own.)