Abstract
In the last two and a half decades, India witnessed a rise in the scale of economic activities. The growth rate of per capital income was 1.7% per annum during the period of 1951–1980 and increased to about 7% in 2006–2007. The incidence of poverty (population below the poverty line) has declined from about 51% in the 1970s to about 27% in 2004–2005. India has also succeeded in reducing infant mortality and in increasing school enrollments. However, challenges remain in areas such as child malnutrition, primary and secondary education completion rates, maternal mortality, and gender balance in education and health. The resurgence of tuberculosis and the threat of HIV/AIDS are also a cause for concern. Degradation of the environment is a significant barrier to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) related to reduction of poverty, hunger, and disease. Therefore, the problem is more acute in low-income countries like India that are struggling for “development” and focusing on increasing levels of economic activity on one side while on the other side facing the negative impacts of degraded environmental quality.
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Notes
- 1.
Dasgupta (2007) warns that if nothing substantial is done to prevent the degradation of ecosystems; the average per capita consumption level at the world level may decline. He finds that economic development during 1970–2000 in the Indian subcontinent was either unsustainable or barely sustainable when the productive base of the countries is taken into account.
- 2.
For environmental federalism in India, see Gupta (2001) and Mandal and Rao (2005).
- 3.
Environmental laws in India for pollution control date back to the mid-nineteenth century. The Shore Nuisance Act, 1853, the Indian Penal Act, 1860, the Indian Easement Act, 1882, the Bengal Smoke Nuisance Act, 1905, the Bombay Smoke Nuisance Act, 1912, and the Motor Vehicle Act, 1839 were some of the pioneering legislations enacted before the independence. In the post-independence period the spate of legislations such as, the Factories Act, 1948, the Industries (Development and Regulation) Act, 1951, the River Board Act, 1956, the Atomic Energy Act, 1962, the Insecticide Act, 1968, the Merchant Shipping (Amendment) Act, 1970, and the Radiation Protection Act, 1971 also dealt with, to some extent, the problems of air and water pollution in India.
- 4.
The Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act and the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act are hereafter referred to as the Water Act and the Air Act, respectively.
- 5.
This section, to a large extent, is based on Murty (2008).
- 6.
A Survey of Water Polluting Industries in India, 1996 and A Survey of Water and Air polluting Industries in India, 2000, Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi.
- 7.
This section, to a large extent, is based on Murty (2008).
- 8.
Coase theorem says that given the initial property rights to any resource either to the polluter or to the affected party, and if the cost of bargaining is zero, the bargaining between the two parties results in the optimal control of pollution. Even with the positive transaction costs, the bargaining could result in the reduction of externality though not to the optimum level (Coase, 1960).
- 9.
The river Ganga runs over 2,500 km through four countries – China (Tibet), Nepal, India and Bangladesh – and forms one of the most populous as well as poverty-stricken river basins of the world. Along its length, large tributaries enter into the Ganga from both north and south, significantly affecting its flow and course. The total basin area of the Ganga is about 1,093,400 km2, of which 79% is spread over eleven Indian states, 13% falls in Nepal, and both Bangladesh and China have 4% each (Murty, 2008).
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Appendices
Appendix 1: Key Environmental Legislation in India: An Illustrative List
Appendix 2: Major Polluting Industries
Appendix 3: Sector-Wise Compliance Status of 17 Categories of Highly Polluting Industries (June 2006)
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Kumar, S., Managi, S. (2009). Environmental Regulations and Compliance in India. In: The Economics of Sustainable Development. Natural Resource Management and Policy, vol 32. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-98176-5_3
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