NCRDs Sterling Institute of Management Studies Nerul, Navi Mumbai

Subject: Environmental Management

ASSIGNMENT On ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES IN INDIA

Submitted To : Prof.Sonali Jonglekar

Submitted By : Amrin Fodkar Roll No- 57 Div- A

THE MAIN ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES IN INDIA The Environmental issues in India are huge. Whether it's the rapidly dropping water tables, mass deforestation, land degradation or river contamination, India has it all and on a massive scale. Below you can find information on all of India's most serious environmental problems. WATER RESOURCES Perhaps the largest of the environmental issues in India facing the people of India is inadequate or lack of access to vital fresh water resources. As India's industries get bigger so will the amount of water they require and the amounts are already beginning to spiral. As an example I use the Coca cola factory which was accused for years of messing up an entire eco system. By simply diverting all the water to their factory, millions of people went without. The company are also accused of causing huge droughts and contamination to a massive area by exploiting an excessive amount of ground water and then replacing it with toxic discharge. Of course, Coca Cola is a big famous company and that is why this came to news but I have no doubt that there are a million examples of similar things happening all over India. Years of exploitation and extraction of groundwater in India has caused the national water table to suddenly and very dramatically drop. Considering that 85% of rural drinking water and 55% of urban water comes from underground sources, this seems to me a very urgent problem as literally hundreds of millions of people could be left without water...does it even bear thinking about! The rivers are on the front line of pollution in India. Millions of people depend on them for their livelihoods but they are slowly being polluted and destroyed by sewage, chemicals and other agricultural and industrial waste. These are some of the most polluted rivers in the world but little seems to be to stem the incessant destruction. THE GANGES More than 400 million people live along the Ganges River. An estimated 2,000,000 persons ritually bathe daily in the river, which is considered holy by Hindus.In the Hindu religion it is said to flow from the lotus feet of Vishnu (forVaisnava devotees) or the hair of Shiva (for Saivites). The spiritual and religious significance could be compared to what the Nile river meant to the ancient Egyptians. While the Ganges may be considered holy, there are some problems associated with the ecology. It is filled with chemical wastes sewage and even the remains of human and animal corpses which carry major health risks by either direct bathing in the water, or by drinking (the Fecal-oral route). THE YAMUNA News Week describes Delhi's sacred Yamuna River as "a putrid ribbon of black sludge" where fecal bacteria is 10,000 over safety limits despite a 15-year program to address the problem. Cholera epidemics are not unknown. NewsWeek observes India's messy democracy is particularly ill equipped to handle the conflicting pressures of rapid growth and poverty. Even

though India revised its national water policy in 2002 to encourage community participation and decentralize water management, the country's Byzantine bureaucracy ensures that it remains a "mere statement of intent." Responsibility for managing water issues is fragmented among a dozen different ministries and departments without any coordination. The government bureaucracy and state-run project department has failed to solve the problem, despite having spent many years and $500 million on this project. RECENT EFFORTS TO ADDRESS WATER ISSUES The government of India envisions a US$100 billion project to interlink all major river networks in India. This initiative would connect water-deficient areas to water-abundant ones by interlinking 37 Indian rivers. One of the largest projects anywhere in the world, it would transfer water through 30 links across 9,600 kilometers. It would connect 32 dams and use 56 million tons of cement and 2 million tons of steel. The project aims a transformation of India's water treatment, management, transmission and distribution. The Indian government has proposed reforms to attract investment and privatization of its water networks. Water companies from all over the world have established a presence in India to pursue an estimated 70 projects worth several billion dollars in 20 Indian cities. India is debating the social and environmental impact of this project. One of the first projects under consideration is the linking of Ken and Betwa rivers in northern India. DEFORESTATION The story of deforestation is another of the highly serious environmental issues in India. It is predicted that almost 5.3 Million hectares of forest have been destroyed since the independence. Most of it being chopped down for housing, industrialisation and river projects. It is estimated that the number of Mangrove Forests have more than halved in the last 20 years. The government soon recognised the importance that these forests hold for the conservation of soil and put forward a range of polices trying to curb the destruction; of course, nothing has really changed and thousands of acres are destroyed every year with nothing in the way of 'replacement'. Poor management and abuse of power are again the increasingly sad cause behind the mass deforestation of India, some call it greed. Protected areas are largely declassified so that commercial activities can take place but new areas are not reclassified. Poaching is another factor, people actually coming in and steeling trees and one of the final blows to the forest of India who already seem to have lost the battle is the invasion of foreign tree species such as Eucalyptus etc. AIR POLLUTION India now has one of the worst qualities of air in the world. Without a doubt the main contributor of air pollution in India is the transport system. In the big cities like Delhi and Mumbai, millions of old and very dirty diesel engines churn out millions of tonnes more sulphur than their western equivalents partly because of being old and partly because of the diesel. As a result, the asthma rate for children in some of the larger cities is now at %50 and rising fast.

FUEL WOOD AND BIOMASS BURNING Fuelwood and biomass burning is the primary reason for near-permanent haze and smoke observed above rural and urban India, and in satellite pictures of the country. Fuelwood and biomass cakes are used for cooking and general heating needs. These are burnt in cook stovesknown as chullah or chulha in some parts of India. These cook stoves are present in over 100 million Indian households, and are used two to three times a day, daily. As of 2009, majority of Indians still use traditional fuels such as dried cow dung, agricultural wastes, and firewood as cooking fuel. This form of fuel is inefficient source of energy, its burning releases high levels of smoke, PM10 particulate matter, NOX, SOX, PAHs, polyaromatics, formaldehyde, carbon monoxide and other air pollutants. Some reports, including one by the World Health Organization, claim 300,000 to 400,000 people die of indoor air pollution and carbon monoxide poisoning in India because of biomass burning and use of chullahs. Burning of biomass and firewood will not stop, unless electricity or clean burning fuel and combustion technologies become reliably available and widely adopted in rural and urban India. India is the world's largest consumer of fuelwood, agricultural waste and biomass for energy purposes. From the most recent available nationwide study, India used 148.7 million tonnes coal replacement worth of fuelwood and biomass annually for domestic energy use. India's national average annual per capita consumption of fuel wood, agri wate and biomass cakes was 206 kilogram coal equivalent. In 2010 terms, with India's population increased to about 1.2 billion, the country burns over 200 million tonnes of coal replacement worth of fuel wood and biomass every year to meet its energy need for cooking and other domestic use. The study found that the households consumed around 95 million tonnes of fuelwood, one-third of which was logs and the rest was twigs. Twigs were mostly consumed in the villages, and logs were more popular in cities of India. The overall contribution of fuelwood, including sawdust and wood waste, was about 46% of the total, the rest being agri waste and biomass dung cakes. Traditional fuel (fuelwood, crop residue and dung cake) dominates domestic energy use in rural India and accounts for about 90% of the total. In urban areas, this traditional fuel constitutes about 24% of the total. Fuel wood, agri waste and biomass cake burning releases over 165 million tonnes of combustion products into India's indoor and outdoor air every year. To place this volume of emission in context, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of the United States estimates that fire wood smoke contributes over 420,000 tonnes of fine particles throughout the United States mostly during the winter months. United States consumes about one-tenth of fuelwood consumed by India, and mostly for fire place and home heating purposes. EPA estimates that residential wood combustion in the USA accounts for 44 percent of total organic matter emissions and 62 percent of the PAH, which are probable human carcinogens and are of great concern to EPA. The fuelwood sourced residential wood smoke makes up over 50 percent of the wintertime particle pollution problem in California. In 2010, the state of California had about the same number of vehicles as all of India. India burns tenfold more fuelwood every year than the United States, the fuelwood quality in India is different than the dry firewood of the United States, and the Indian stoves in use are less efficient thereby producing more smoke and air pollutants per kilogram equivalent. India has less land area and less emission air space than the United States. In summary, the impact on indoor and outdoor air pollution by fuelwood and biomass cake burning is far worse in India.

A United Nations study finds firewood and biomass stoves can be made more efficient in India. Animal dung, now used in inefficient stoves, could be used to produce biogas, a cleaner fuel with higher utilization efficiency. In addition, an excellent fertilizer can be produced from the slurry from biogas plants. Switching to gaseous fuels would bring the greatest gains in terms of both thermal efficiency and reduction in air pollution, but would require more investment. A combination of technologies may be the best way forward. Between 2001 and 2010, India has made progress in adding electrical power generation capacity, bringing electricity to rural areas, and reforming market to improve availability and distribution of liquified cleaner burning fuels in urban and rural area. Over the same period, scientific data collection and analysis show improvement in India's air quality, with some regions witnessing 30 to 65% reduction in NOx, SOx and suspended particulate matter. Even at these lower levels, the emissions are higher than those recommended by the World Health Organization. Continued progress is necessary. Scientific studies conclude biomass combustion in India is the country's dominant source of carbonaceous aerosols, emitting 0.25 teragram per year of black carbon into air, 0.94 teragram per year of organic matter, and 2.04 teragram per year of small particulates with diameter less than 2.5 microns. Biomass burning, as domestic fuel in India, accounts for about 3 times as much black carbon air pollution as all other sources combined, including vehicles and industrial sources. Other sources of pollution in Indian cities are vehicles and emissions from industry. Until 1992, India protected its automobile industry using license raj. Many two wheel, three wheel and four wheel vehicles lacked catalytic converters. Per vehicle emissions were amongst the highest in the world. The refining of oil and supply of fuel was owned, regulated and run by the government; the fuel quality was lax. In 2005, India adopted emission standard of Bharat Stage IV for vehicles, which is equivalent to Euro IV European standards for vehicle emissions. Nevertheless, the old pre-2005 vehicles, and even pre-1992 vehicles are still on Indian streets. FUEL ADULTERATION Some Indian taxis and auto-rickshaws run on adulterated fuel blends. Adulteration of gasoline and diesel with lower-priced fuels is common in South Asia, including India.[46] Some adulterants increase emissions of harmful pollutants from vehicles, worsening urban air pollution. Financial incentives arising from differential taxes are generally the primary cause of fuel adulteration. In India and other developing countries, gasoline carries a much higher tax than diesel, which in turn is taxed more than kerosene meant as a cooking fuel, while some solvents and lubricants carry little or no tax. As fuel prices rise, the public transport driver cuts costs by blending the cheaper hydrocarbon into highly taxed hydrocarbon. The blending may be as much as 20-30 percent. For a low wage driver, the adulteration can yield short term savings that are significant over the month. The consequences to long term air pollution, quality of life and effect on health are simply ignored. Also ignored are the reduced life of vehicle engine and higher maintenance costs, particularly if the taxi, auto-rickshaw or truck is being rented for a daily fee.

Adulterated fuel increases tailpipe emissions of hydrocarbons (HC), carbon monoxide (CO), oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and particulate matter (PM). Air toxin emissions which fall into the category of unregulated emissions of primary concern are benzene and polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), both well known carcinogens. Kerosene is more difficult to burn than gasoline; its addition results in higher levels of HC, CO and PM emissions even from catalystequipped cars. The higher sulfur level of kerosene is another issue. The permissible level of fuel sulfur in India, in 2002, was 0.25 percent by weight as against 0.10 percent for gasoline. The higher levels of sulfur can deactivate the catalyst. Once the catalyst becomes deactivated, the amount of pollution from the vehicle dramatically increases. Fuel adulteration is essentially an unintended consequence of tax policies and the attempt to control fuel prices, in the name of fairness. Air pollution is the ultimate result. This problem is not unique to India, but prevalent in many developing countries including those outside of south Asia. This problem is largely absent in economies that do not regulate the ability of fuel producers to innovate or price based on market demand. TRAFFIC CONGESTION Traffic congestion is severe in India's cities and towns. Traffic congestion is caused for several reasons, some of which are: increase in number of vehicles per kilometer of available road, a lack of intra-city divided-lane highways and intra-city expressways networks, lack of inter-city expressways, traffic accidents and chaos from poor enforcement of traffic laws. Traffic congestion reduces average traffic speed. At low speeds, scientific studies reveal, vehicles burn fuel inefficiently and pollute more per trip. For example, a study in the United States found that for the same trip, cars consumed more fuel and polluted more if the traffic was congested, than when traffic flowed freely. At average trip speeds between 20 to 40 kilometers per hour, the cars pollutant emission was twice as much as when the average speed was 55 to 75 kilometers per hour. At average trip speeds between 5 to 20 kilometers per hour, the cars pollutant emissions were 4 to 8 times as much as when the average speed was 55 to 70 kilometers per hour. Fuel efficiencies similarly were much worse with traffic congestion. Traffic gridlock in Delhi and other India cities is extreme. The average trip speed on many Indian city roads is less than 20 kilometers per hour; a 10 kilometer trip can take 30 minutes, or more. At such speeds, vehicles in India emit air pollutants 4 to 8 times more than they would with less traffic congestion; Indian vehicles also consume a lot more carbon footprint fuel per trip, than they would if the traffic congestion was less.In cities like Bangalore, around 50% of children suffer from asthma. PLASTICS AND OTHER WASTE I have already touched on the massive problem of waste disposal but I intend to go into it more here. It seems that some areas are simply fed up with the lack of Government intervention and are using there initiatives. As an example I use some of the towns and villages in Kerala who are seeing a return to the old paper bags from plastic ones.

As I am sure you know, plastic isn't in any urgency to degrade but the people of India don't seem to recognise this as they throw every unwanted item onto the floor wherever they are. Of course, the victims of this environmental issues in India are the future generations and the animals. The holy cows that are so integral to Indian life are slowly being killed from the huge amount of plastic bags they consume that eventually rap around their insides.

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES AND INDIAN LAW Since about late 1980s, the Supreme Court of India has been pro-actively engaged in India's environmental issues. In most countries, it is the executive and the legislative branches of the government that plan, implement and address environmental issues; the Indian experience is different. The Supreme Court of India has been engaged in interpreting and introducing new changes in the environmental jurisprudence directly. The Court has laid down new principles to protect the environment, re-interpreted environmental laws, created new institutions and structures, and conferred additional powers on the existing ones through a series of directions and judgments. The Courts directions on environmental issues goes beyond the general questions of law, as is usually expected from the highest Court of a democratic country. The Supreme Court of India, in its order, includes executive actions and technical details of environmental actions to be implemented. Indeed, some critics of India's Supreme Court describe the Court as the Lords of Green Bench or Garbage Supervisor. The reasons for the increasing interjection of India's Supreme Court in governance arenas are, experts claim, complex. A key factor has been the failure of government agencies and the state owned enterprises in discharging their Constitutional and Statutory duties. This has prompted civil society groups to file public interest complaints with the Courts, particularly the Supreme Court, for suitable remedies. Public interest litigation and judicial activism on environmental issues extends beyond India's Supreme Court. It includes the High Courts of individual states.India's judicial activism on environmental issues has, some suggest, delivered positive effects to the Indian experience. The Supreme Court has, through intense judicial activism, the proponents claim, become a symbol of hope for the people of India. As a result of judicial activism, India's Supreme Court has delivered a new normative regime of rights and insisted that the Indian state cannot act arbitrarily but must act reasonably and in public interest on pain of its action being invalidated by judicial intervention. India's judicial activism on environmental issues has, others suggest, had adverse consequences. Public interest cases are repeatedly filed to block infrastructure projects aimed at solving environmental issues in India, such as but not limiting to water works, expressways, land acquisition for projects, and electricity power generation projects Even after a stay related to an infrastructure project is vacated, or a court order gives a green light to certain project, new issues become grounds for court notices and new public interest litigation. Judicial activism in India has, in several key cases, found state-directed economic development ineffective and a failure, then interpreted laws and issued directives that encourage greater competition and free market to reduce environmental pollution. In other cases, the interpretations and directives have preserved industry protection, labor practices and highly polluting stateowned companies detrimental to environmental quality of India.