CAN INDUSTRIALISATION GO HAND IN HAND WITH ECOLOGICAL BALANCE IN INDIA?
The debate over industrialization complementing ecological balance is very relevant in the global scenario, and more so for India. Our country is in a state of transformation, and the stand the government and we the people decided to take on this issue shall decide our future. We have reached a stage where we do not have a choice between the two. Both sides have to be implemented simultaneously, and that is where the difficulty lies. If we now decided to implement industrialization without caring for the environment, we might gain in the short term, but the future shall be very bleak for us. The consequences of not caring for ecological balance have already started becoming evident. In the past two years, there has been a steady increase in the number of floods in the country. Floods in Andhra Pradesh and Bihar are heard of every year, but Bombay and Surat?? In Bombay, the demand for land is so acute, that has been reclaimed from the sea, and wetlands and marshy areas are being filled up for urban housing and development. Little do the real estate developers know that these lands act as natural sources for drainage. The environmental agencies can do nothing but file petitions, and by the time the cases are heard in court, the damage is already done. So when there are no marshy areas where the excess rainwater can drain off to, where does it go? Quite naturally, it floods the homes and streets, in the absence of an effective drainage system. India’s population has being growing by leaps and bounds, but infrastructure development has only progressed in small baby steps!!
So you may ask, why not go ahead and undertake development keeping the environment in mind? The catch here is implementing development along with maintaining ecological balance puts a heavy burden on our cash-strapped government. eg. A CNG auto rickshaw has far cleaner emissions than its diesel counterpart, but is also twice more expensive. After New Delhi, many cities are now planning to shift to CNG as a fuel for public transport. The initial cost of setting up the necessary infrastructure will be high, but the costs are recovered in the long term.
In the automobile sector, emission norms in India are not as stringent as in other developed countries, so manufacturers keep selling cars in India running on obsolete technology, that won’t clear the emission norms abroad. To have cleaner emissions and better fuel efficiency, the technology driving the car needs to be further developed and refined, which makes the car pricier. So even though the manufacturers are aware of better technologies, they are reluctant to imbibe them so as not to lose out to their rivals in price wars. But the situation has definitely improved with the advent of global auto majors in the Indian market, battling it out equally with the domestic players. And to make it better, Indian companies are exporting cars to other countries, so they all know that complacency with quality is definitely suicidal.
Now let’s take up the case of industrialization today. Debates are raging in West Bengal on the judiciousness of the govt. to sell farmland for setting up industries. The industry vs. agriculture topic is very tricky, and you always end up winning some and losing some. No industry is in complete harmony with the environment, its just that some cause lesser damage than the rest. And the cost of setting up an eco-friendly industry, that meets global standards for emissions and waste discharge, is significantly higher than one which is not. That is precisely why companies flout environmental standards, and the judiciary is ill-equipped to handle such cases fast.
So, the bottomline is that there is a significant premium to be paid if we choose to lead a path giving us the best of both worlds-development, and ecological balance. Be it a car or a thermal power plant, ecologically viable alternatives are not always economically viable. Hence, it is imperative for the govt. to make the people understand the benefit of environment friendly development, and the premium that they pay shall make their own lives better. The benefits may not be immediately visible, since this is a long-term investment and will take some time to bear fruit. And it truly is a difficult challenge ahead of our govt. to effectively channelise its funds, since there are so many daunting tasks ahead of us.
All said and done, we can’t reverse the damage already done, we can just hope for a better future, giving us more time to reflect on our actions before this world collapses before our very own eyes. After all, a parachute can just slow down our descent when we jump from a flying aircraft, it can’t stop us from falling. And we have already jumped…
