Question

International journal of water resources development

Answer 1

While teaching courses on environment and sustainability to management students, I find it interesting as to how frequently and how strongly a view emerges that India, at its current stage of development, should ignore environmental costs for the sake of meeting its development goals. This view appears to be consistent with the larger public opinion in India. When the World Values Survey—conducted across more than 80 countries—reported its findings from India in 2014, about half the people interviewed agreed that we should focus on economic growth even if it comes at the expense of the environment, whereas a little over a third of the respondents indicated a preference for environmental protection over economic growth. The larger public opinion is perhaps shaped by the discourse on the growth versus environment debate in India.

The country’s low rank on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business index is raised often in the media and people at the highest levels of government set out to improve our ranking. High-powered committees comprising top bureaucrats and industry leaders are commissioned to write reports on streamlining and speeding up regulatory approvals, especially those related to the environment and forests. In the past decade and a half, there have been at least five such committees, which made recommendations to improve the climate for private investments in industry and infrastructure.