‘We Don’t Just Have An Environmental Crisis, But A Govt In Denial As Well’ : Prerna Singh Bindra

India ranked among the bottom five nations in the global Environmental Performance Index (EPI) list released in January 2018, slipping 36 places in two years. Multiple studies conducted recently have shown that India is dealing with an environmental crisis. Consider the following findings:

  • None of the 280 Indian cities surveyed in a recent Greenpeace study met the World Health Organization (WHO) standards for clean air, with capital city Delhi ranking worst, as IndiaSpend reported on February 5, 2018;
  • Yamuna, which runs through Delhi, has 16 million faecal coliform parts per million (PPM). The standard is 500 PPM for potable water;
  • Bengaluru’s lakes often catch fire because of the waste and untreated sewage dumped in them.
The government does not appear to be worried about India’s poor showing in environment protection. The minister for environment, forests & climate change (MoEFCC) Harsh Vardhan has dismissed them as “just rankings”. Citizens seeking redressal of environmental grievances have therefore turned to the judiciary, notably the National Green Tribunal (NGT), which was established as an act in Parliament on October 18, 2010.

“The green tribunal is now the epicentre of the environmental movement in India,” environment lawyer Ritwick Dutta told IndiaSpend. “It has become the first and the last recourse for people because their local governments are not doing the job of protecting the environment. But political apathy, indeed deliberate action, are rendering the NGT ineffective.”

A law graduate from Delhi University, Dutta, 43, started pursuing environment law in 2001. His first case was against Vedanta, the mining company, where he represented the Dongria Kondh tribals seeking a ban on bauxite mining in the Niyamagiri hills in south-west Odisha, considered sacred by local communities. Dutta has, since, taken on cases against other mega mining projects too–the Rs 9,000-crore Polavaram multi-purpose irrigation project in West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh and the Lafarge lime mining project in Mandi district of Himachal Pradesh. Dutta also fought for the Ratnagiri farmers whose mango orchards would have been affected by JSW’s thermal power plants.

In 2005, Dutta co-founded the Legal Initiative for Forest and Environment (LIFE) with another environment lawyer Rahul Choudhary. Two years later, they set up the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Resources and Response Centre, which provides an accessible database on EIA reports–known for being subjective and fraudulent–along with a critical analysis.

In an interview with IndiaSpend, Ritwick explained the collapse of green governance in India, how the current government is diluting environmental safeguards and how the NGT is being weakened.

Recent studies have shown that India ranks among the bottom nations in environment performance while it tops the world in environment conflict. What explains this crisis?

One way of looking at this is that the level of reporting of conflicts is high–unlike say in China–and also because the system allows you to raise your voice. Having said that, India is witnessing a high level of environment conflict across the landscape. One reason is that, in absolute numbers, more people–250 to 300 million–in India are dependent on natural resources than any other country in the world. Our people depend on forests, wetlands, seas, rivers, grasslands, mountains for their livelihood and sustenance. And all these ecosystems are under severe pressure.

The Himalayas are set to have the highest concentrations of dams in the world, so states like Himachal, Arunachal and Sikkim are fraught with conflict over water, and dams (with consequent displacement and loss of forests). In central India–Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand–the takeover of land for mining has communities up in arms; Goa is taking to the streets against the plans to transform it into a coal corridor. Tamil Nadu–and indeed across the country–there is a war over sand–with officials, reporters, environmentalists being killed and harassed for taking up the (issues of) sand mafia/illegal mining.

Add to this the fact that India’s forests are under very severe pressure. Between 2014 to 2017, 36,500 hectares of forest land were diverted for non-forest purposes like mining, highways, industry, and so on. This works out to an annual average of 12,166 hectares, or the equivalent of 63 football fields every single day. This does not include the encroachments.

Thirteen of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are in India. The Yamuna–flowing through India’s capital–has 16 million faecal coliform parts per million (PPM); the standard is 500 PPM for potable water. Even the flush in your toilet might have cleaner water.

The Lancet report which said that 2.5 million people are dying prematurely due to diseases linked to pollution was dismissed as a western conspiracy. Environment minister Harsh Vardhan, also a doctor, has denied reports that suggest air pollution leads to millions of death every year saying that: “To attribute any death to a cause like pollution may be too much.”

So we don’t just have an environmental crisis, but the government is in denial as well... read more:


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