Jairam Ramesh’s departure from the environment ministry is being seen as a victory by some industrialists and commentators. Presumably, they are hoping that India will get back to the old system of lax, opportunistic and often corrupt implementation of laws for protecting the environment and natural wealth of the country. They may be disappointed. The new incumbent, Jayanthi Natarajan, is a politically astute person who will not see any advantage in backtracking on her predecessor’s decisions. Moreover, Mr Ramesh has moved into an area that affects industry even more directly than environment and forests — that is land acquisition. If he brings to this area the same vigour and honesty that he brought to environmental clearances then the adverse impact on the corporate groups that thrive on bending and bypassing the letter and spirit of the law of the land may be even greater.
The belief that honest implementation of established laws on forest rights, forest protection, environmental care and public health is a nuisance at the present stage of India’s development is not restricted to a few corrupt industrialists. It is shared by well-meaning civil servants and politicians. Even the Planning Commission, which should be lobbying for all those things the market will tend to forget, clashed with the environment ministry led by Mr Ramesh. Therefore, it is worth stepping beyond personalities to ask whether a conflict between growth and environmental protection really exists and, if so, how it can be best resolved.
Forgive a little autobiographical digression here. I came to policy making from the left of the political spectrum — the part that believed that nothing matters more than accelerating growth. The more radical ones of our tribe relished the idea of forced savings and industrialisation at a hectic pace. What weaned me from this Stalinist vision was my involvement in the almost neoclassical methodology of cost-benefit analysis which, along with the usual market-oriented stuff about international prices, also talked about externalities. And this came during Indira Gandhi’s reign — for her, conservation trumped almost everything else.
The purpose of this digression is to suggest that conservation and environmental protection fit in better with neoclassical economics and conservative politics. But the pursuit of quick profits by unscrupulous industrialists has distorted this equation and today the prime movers of environmental concerns are the civil society activists who have connected these concerns with their core agenda of social justice. That is why the disputes that have raged for both environmental clearance and land acquisition have been presented as a clash between those who give priority to rapid growth and those who would settle for lower growth to protect the environment.
Rapid growth has become an obsession with decision makers, judging by the frequency with which the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, finance minister and other such worthies talk about it. But remember that the welfare of the Indians at whom this growth is being targeted also depends on the quality and integrity of their living environment. A new committee under Partho Dasgupta hopes to provide a better metric for measuring progress. But the obsession with growth is not just an illusion of numbers. It is a product of where power and influence rest today.
Rapid growth means more mega-projects for infrastructure, mining and manufacturing, and a rapid expansion of urban areas. All large projects involving the exploitation and use of natural resources and urban expansion have environmental consequences which may involve one or more of the following:
- large-scale land use changes often in ecologically sensitive areas;
- displacement of a large number of people from their homes and livelihood sources;
- extensive interventions in natural hydrological regimes;
- disruption of local biotic regimes,
- loss of forest cover, especially owing to mining projects since a very large proportion of the unexploited mineral wealth of India, including coal, lies in forest land; and
- a substantial increase in the air and water pollution load which may be of local, regional, national or even global concern.
The environmental consequences of rapid urbanisation will become a growing concern. Vehicle ownership is expected to go up by a factor of seven. But with higher vehicle efficiency standards, more public transport in cities and a shift of freight traffic to rail and coastal shipping, growth in energy consumption for transport and the consequential environmental impact may go up by about five times. The requirements of the growing urban population for living and working space, water and waste disposal will have environmental consequences that will have to be managed. Rural-urban conflicts for scarce water and landfill sites for solid waste disposal will arise.
The clash between growth imperatives and the environment will become sharper. Therefore, a decision-making framework that anticipates this and puts in place a mechanism that reconciles growth, land acquisition and environmental protection is good for growth, social justice and the environment. The key lies in five elements:
- full provision of data and information on project design and impact;
- stakeholder engagement from an early stage, where necessary in public hearings;
- negotiated solutions in which people’s rights are affected;
- generous compensation, relief and rehabilitation assistance; and
- careful monitoring by an independent watchdog.
A spate of legislation and policy initiatives is in the works. These include a new land acquisition Act which may or may not incorporate provisions on relief and rehabilitation, the Chawla committee proposals on natural resource leases and land sales, Mr Ramesh’s proposal for an independent environmental protection agency to handle clearances and so on. An important dimension that needs to be factored in is the state governments’ role. Most of the recent problems have involved some sort of murky collusion between investors in a hurry and pliable state administrations.
The biggest change we need is in the mindset at the top in the central and state governments and in corporate boardrooms. Protecting the interests of landowners and other right holders, conserving resources, containing pollution loads to manageable levels and ensuring safety are not luxuries that we can postpone even as we pursue growth mindlessly. Ignore this message and every major project that is needed for the 9 to 10 per cent growth that the Yojana Bhavan pines for will be caught in a morass of protests and court cases.
