Open Forum

New Delhi, 23 August 2016

Sustainability & Governance

GENUINE EFFORTS IMPERATIVE

By Dhurjati Mukherjee

In recent times, the word ‘sustainability’ has been much in sharp focus. At the one end, is the need to conserve resources for future generations and, on the other, to ensure that basic needs of the population are met in a sustainable and judicious manner, through an ‘inclusive’ approach.

However, till date, the following statistics show that majority of the population in our country survives on below minimum facilities, thereby debarred of basic healthy living. Let us examine these facts, all of which are provided by Government surveys:

·         A recent report pointed out that 1.06 elementary and secondary government schools in the country have just one teacher, with Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh faring the worst.                

·         A serving Head Master of a government primary school in Purulia district of West Bengal does not have a toilet in his house as open defecation is rampant in Eastern and Western parts of the country.

·         Nearly 1.9 lakh schools do not have girls’ toilets or these are ‘dysfunctional’, according to the NSSO, while sanitation coverage is quite obviously the worst among marginalized sections such as Dalits – mere 23 per cent – and tribals – even less at 16 per cent.

·         Only 35 per cent of India’s 17 crore rural households have access to drinking water that is provided through pipelines after treatment, with Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh faring at the top while Bengal, UP and Bihar are at the bottom.

·         Every second woman in rural India walked an average 173 km a year to fetch potable water in 2012, making her trek 25 km longer than what it was in 2008-09.

·         Water contamination is rampant in the country with several districts in four-five States in the Eastern region plagued with arsenic pollution while fluoride contamination is also quite widespread in many parts of the country, the consequences obviously being dangerous to human health.

·         Nearly 200 million people live on less than $1 a day and between 400-500 million do not even have access to modern sources of energy.

·         As per WHO estimates, pollution in rural Indian kitchens is 30 times the standard and six times the air pollution level in New Delhi or Kolkata.

The overall figures are far more distressing, which clearly reveal the pitiable condition in which the majority of the Indian population lives. Thus, one may easily come to the conclusion that our planning, despite promises hasn’t taken into account the needs of the poor and the impoverished sections and whatever little that may have been done has not reached the stakeholders due to corruption, inaction and inefficiency. The report card of the much-talked about corporate sector too is not quite encouraging as the Government had to bring in changes in the Companies Act to force them to spend on CSR projects.

Whether it is the Centre or the States, the record is indeed abysmal, specially of States in the Eastern, Northern and Western India. Even after the 73rd and 74th Constitutional amendments came into force, the panchayats today are devoid of adequate resources to undertake developmental programmes at the grass-root level.

In such a scenario, the question of sustainable development in India has a different meaning in comparison to the West, which has to curb conspicuous consumption and conserve resources. For example, if the Government wants to electrify all villages of the country, which is imperative at this juncture, emissions would obviously increase even if say 20 per cent of power is from renewable resources. Urbanization too has an effect in a country like ours.

The huge population of the country compared to the meagre land density, on the one hand, compared with the widening disparity in incomes between the rich – consuming around 75 per cent of all resources – and the poor and economically weaker sections make it immensely difficult to ensure sustainable livelihood for the suffering millions. Prof. Michael Lipton, formerly of the University of Sussex, had pointed out that most Third World countries had adopted a planning strategy of subsidising the urban middle class at the cost of the rural poor. And India is no exception to such an approach.  

At a recently ‘Sustainability Summit’ organized by Xavier University at Bhubaneswar, the issue was fiercely debated by corporate professionals, academic scholars, research students and social activists from across the country. The need to ensure a ‘better world’ for present and future generations was echoed by each of the speakers so that development is all-round and not for a mere section of the society.

Importantly, the challenge of environmental catastrophes in this development process was highlighted. At the same time, the country has to move forward by boosting power generation, setting up more industries and gearing up the urbanization process. With 300 million homes going without electricity, the Government’s resolve to electrify all villages within the next seven-eight years appears improbable. Add to this the concern that meeting the target may result in carbon emissions that would be difficult to control even with best of efforts and 20 per cent reliance on solar energy.

It must be remembered that the planet has limited capacity for absorbing Co2 emissions and a recent report of the World Health Organization (WHO) needs to be referred to. It pointed out that climate change is likely to kill 2.5 lakhs more people every year by 2030 of which 1.3 lakh deaths would be in India alone. Most of these deaths will be caused from malaria, diarrhoeal disease, heat stress and malnutrition.

While hopes have been raised over the Paris Accord, the turn of events may prove that it would be extremely difficult to check global warming with the current level of commitments made. Moreover, commitments by the developed world of financing for sustainable development and transfer of resources are rarely kept.   

With 0.7 per cent of the global population enjoying over 50 per cent of wealth and resources and 75 per cent of the population getting a mere 3 per cent, it would be extremely difficult to work out a sustainable transition. Water insecurity, lack of power, livelihood insecurity, malnutrition and hunger are grave problems facing the Third World. While the desirable transition is easy to visualize, it will be difficult to turn it into reality.

India is one of the laggards and despite the buzz word of ‘sustainability,’ we are far from achieving the goal. Transparency, better governance, dedication, political will, and of course, proper allocation of resources, are the key components necessary for ushering in the change. These need to be addressed genuinely. ----INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)